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UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA    PUBLICATIONS 
IN 

PHILOSOPHY 

Vol.  2,  No.  5,  pp.  103-186  February  4,  1913 


THE    METAPHYSICS    OF    HISTORICAL 
KNOWLEDGE 


BY 

DEWITT    H.   PARKER 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  PRESS 
BERKELEY 


UNlVilRSITY     OF     CALIFORNIA     PUBLICATIONS 

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5.  The  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge,  by  DeWitt  H.  Parker.    Pp. 

103-186.     February,   1913  85 


UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA    PUBLICATIONS 

IN 

PHILOSOPHY 

Vol.  2,  No.  5,  pp.  103-186  February  4,  1913 


THE  METAPHYSICS  OF  HISTORICAL 
KNOWLEDGE 

BY 

DEWITT  H.  PAEKER 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Introduction  103 

I.  The  General  Character  of  Historical  Knowledge  104 

II.  The  Nature  and  Possibility  of  Representative  Knowledge  of  the 

Past   V 110 

III.  The  Nature  of  Time  119 

1.  The  Temporal  Experience  120 

2.  The  Scope  of  Time  124 

3.  The  Properties  of  Time  127 

IV.  The  Metaphysical  Status  of  the  Past  140 

V.  The  Nature  of  Historical  Truth  152 

VI.  Historical  Verification    164 

Vll.  Historical  Truth  and  Existence  176 

INTRODUCTION 

The  purpose  of  this  essay  is  to  determine  the  character  and 
object  of  our  knowledge  of  the  past.  Such  an  enquiry  ought  to 
lead  to  results  of  interest  not  only  in  themselves  but  also  for  the 
general  problem  of  knowledge.  For,  in  the  case  of  knowledge 
of  the  past,  all  the  difficulties  of  the  epistemological  problem 
become  acute;  a  reference  to  this  field  serves  as  a  ready  touch- 
stone for  testing  the  various  theories  of  knowledge. 

The  pursuit  of  this  problem  cannot  be  kept  separate  from 
that  of  another — the  metaphysics  of  time.  A  term  which  has  an 
intimate  relation  to  another  term  cannot  be  studied  apart  from 


1(1 1  f'  iiirrrsUji  of  f'<il  ifuriiid  I'lihlirdl  itnis  in  I'll  ilnsoj>li  ij.    I  Vol.  2 

till'  lallrr.  If  krinw  Icd^'c  is  suiih'  sort  nf  i-il.ition  Ijctwecn  subject 
and  ()l)jiM't,  il.s  nalnrc  cannot  fail  to  he  iilTcctcMl  by  the  kind  of 
hcinj?  |)oss(',ss('d  by  the  oliject :  an  •'[)ist('rnolot<y  in<'vital)ly  in- 
volves an  ontolo'^y;  the  existenlia!  status  of  thr;  past  is  in  the 
hif^hcst  degree  important  for  the  detennination  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  past.  This  will  form  an  ecpially  important  part  of  our 
ciKpiiry. 

Our  proccdiiit'  will  be;  briefly  as  follows.  We  shall  begin 
with  an  elementary  analysis  of  the  knowledge  of  the  past.  This 
will  lead  to  certain  difficulties,  on  the  one  hand  epistemologieal, 
on  the  other  hand  metaphysical.  After  a  solution  of  the  former, 
the  consideration  of  the  latter  will  involve  a  discussion  of  the 
nature  of  time.  This  will  occupy  a  large  part  of  our  space,  and 
unavoidably  somewhat  interrupt  our  progr&ss.  Lastly,  however, 
the  epistemologieal  enquiry  will  be  resumed,  and  followed  into  its 
ultimate  issues. 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  GENERAL  CHARACTER  OF  HISTORICAL 
KNOWLEDGE 

Knowledge  of  the  past  is  of  two  fundamentally  different 
varieties :  through  memory,  and  through  report,  meaning  by  the 
latter  all  knowledge  communicated  to  one  whether  by  word 
of  mouth  of  an  eye-witness  or  through  history  and  tradition. 
There  is,  of  course,  a  third  variety,  knowledge  through  inference, 
such  as  knowledge  of  past  geological  epochs.  Yet  this  last,  despite 
its  distinctive  character  as  inference,  is,  for  our  present  purpose, 
reducible  to  memory  or  report.  For  all  inference  proceeds, 
through  analogy  or  induction,  on  the  basis  of  observations  made 
by  the  investigator,  to  obtain  which  one  must  depend  on  one's 
own  perception  and  memory  or  on  the  reports  of  one's  fellows. 
We  will  consider  the  nature  of  each  of  these  varieties. 

The  memory  experience  partakes  of  the  directness  of  original 
e.xperience.  It  is  intimate,  personal,  warm  as  the  original  with 
the  warmth  of  our  own  life.  The  original  experience  and  the 
memory  experience  seem  to  be  of  one  identical  stuff.  To  be  sure, 
memory  is  not  so  full — many  a  detail  is  wanting,  the  outline  is 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  105 

hazy,  and  much  of  the  vividness  of  the  original  is  gone.  Neverthe- 
less, so  much  as  is  there  is  there  in  the  flesh.  Call  up  any  vivid 
remembrance,  and  see  if  this  is  not  true. 

We  might,  indeed,  apply  "the  exclusion  of  the  introjeetion" 
in  the  case  of  memory,  just  as  Avenarius^  applied  it  to  percep- 
tion. You  think,  we  might  say  to  the  adherent  of  the  contrary 
view,  that  the  content  of  your  memory  is  other  than  the  content 
of  the  original  experience,  because  you  have  fallen  into  the  vulgar 
and  egregious  error  of  supposing  that  your  experience  is  in  your 
head.  And  this  you  do  the  more  readily  in  the  case  of  memories, 
because,  unlike  your  perceptions,  neither  you  nor  your  Mitmensch 
can  find  them  here  in  the  space  of  direct  experience.  But  if  j^ou 
take  the  content  of  your  memory  "as  it  is  given ' '  and  ' ' describe 
it  as  you  find  it, ' '  you  will  easily  convince  yourself  that  inside  of 
your  head  you  could  never  discover  the  memory  of  your  experi- 
ence, and  that  the  experience  itself,  when  you  think  of  it,  belongs 
to  the  space  and  time  world  of  your  past,  as  M^ell  as,  in  another 
sense,  to  that  of  your  present  experience.  Immediate  experience 
thus  testifies  that,  when  we  remember,  we  are  again  in  the  past. 
Between  memory  and  original  experience  no  dividing  line  can 
be  drawn.  The  one  is  simply  a  modification  of,  a  change  in,  the 
other.  Brain  physiology  lends  support  to  this  view,  in  its  teach- 
ing that  there  is  probably  no  distinction  between  the  sensory  and 
the  memorial  areas. 

But  is  not  this  result  contradicted  by  the  well-known  fact 
of  the  uniqueness  of  mental  states?  Memory  and  original  ex- 
perience may  be  of  the  same  character,  but  they  are  not  for  that 
reason  of  the  same  substance.  Once  lived,  an  experience  is  done 
with ;  the  memory  of  it  is  a  different  experience,  numerically  dis- 
tinct, with  a  different  date  and  a  different  setting.    One  can  never 

'        have  again  the  same  experience. 

'■^  This  objection,  although  backed  by  much  authority,  is  a  mere 

,^  dogma.  It  is,  moreover,  incompatible  with  the  identity  and  con- 
tinuity of  the  self,  indefeasible  facts  of  immediate  experience, 
which  presuppose  that  elements  of  consciousness  remain  identical 

(^      despite  change  and  passage  of  time.     If,  after  a  night's  sleep, 
Iq      a  man  were  to  awaken  with  sensations  and  purposes  and  mem- 

) 

N 


n) 


W 


Q 


N^  1  Ber  Menschliche  Weltbegriff. 


ion         I'nin  rsihf  of  ('(tlifnniid  I'lthlirntions  in  I'hilosnphif.   I  Vol.  2 

orics  iill  tlisliiii't  t'r<nii  lliosc  wliicli  lie  possfsscd  wlicri  Ik;  went 
to  bod,  ho  ('(iiild  imt,  rxfc|)f  hy  n  niisusc  of  lanj^uapjo  wliidi  bo- 
trnvs  tlic  fulsily  of  llic  hypothesis,  be  cuHcd  the  sanu!  man.  Tlic 
possibility  of  the  real  identity  of  psychical  elements  at  diff(;rent 
dates  lia.s  hctii  denied,  imt  because  it  is  counter  to  experience  or 
to  the  facts,  l)ut  because  of  a  fear  of  as.siinilating  the  psychical 
to  the  pliysical,  because  of  the  acceptance  of  a  new  form  of 
spiriliudistie  psychology.  Despite  tlie  supposed  uniqueness  of 
moments  of  time,  it  has  not  seemed  absurd  to  think  of  a  physical 
thinpc  as  remaining  identical  through  various  instants  and 
changes,  as  witness  the  case  of  simple  motion;  or  to  believe  that 
the  "elements"  persist  despite  apparent  loss  or  recombination. 
For  our  immediate  experience,  the  self  has  the  same  sort  of  iden- 
tity as  a  physical  thing.  Just  as,  when  unsophisticated,  we  speak 
of  the  same  thing  as  being  here  now  or  there  then,  so  we  speak 
of  the  same  thought  or  memory  as  now  in  mind,  then  as  no  longer 
present,  yet  as  now  again  in  consciousness.  Our  purposes  and 
affections  are.  for  us,  the  same,  quite  literally  and  exactly,  through 
the  years  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the  years.  Moreover,  on  all 
grounds,  insight  points  to  the  essential  identity  of  physical  and 
psychical.  When  once  this  is  questioned,  the  problem  of  mind  and 
body  becomes  insoluble,  and  resort  is  had  to  the  various  forms  of 
dualism,  with  all  their  difficulties.  The  believers  in  the  unique- 
ness of  mental  states  reduce  the  identity  of  the  self  to  the  identity 
of  the  brain  or  the  objects  in  which  the  self  is  interested,  which 
implies  the  acceptance,  how^ever  veiled,  of  epiphenomenalism. 

That  in  turn  there  are  difficulties  in  the  thesis  here  main- 
tained, I  do  not  deny.  It  requires,  I  admit,  the  recasting  of  many 
of  our  conceptions  of  time  and  existence.  With  the  consideration 
of  its  difficulties  and  its  metaphysical  implications  we  shall  have 
later  to  do.  We  postpone  them  at  present,  because  they  involve 
the  whole  time  problem.  At  present  it  suffices  for  us  to  recog- 
nize, as  the  cardinal  principle  of  all  epistemological  investigation, 
that  the  deliverances  of  immediate  experience  cannot  be  gainsaid. 
Logical  constructions  must  be  based  on  these ;  and  Avlien  logic  and 
experience  seem  to  l)e  at  variance,  let  us  not  discount  experience ; 
let  us  rather  re-examine  our  logic.  The  two  cannot  remain  at 
variance,  nor  can  we  be  satisfied  with  their  disagreement.     That 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  107 

they  are  not  actually  so,  will  be  one  result  of  our  investigation. 
We  shall  show  that  what  experience  teaches — that  the  original  and 
the  memorial  experiences  are  the  same,  that  a  past  experience  is 
also  a  present  experience — is  also  the  teaching  of  metaphysical, 
logical  construction. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  knowledge  of  the  past  which  comes 
to  us  from  report,  using  this  term  in  the  inclusive  sense  already 
defined.  Let  us  consider  such  knowledge  as  is  nearest  to  memory. 
Another  tells  me,  from  memory,  of  his  o^vn  experience.  What 
then  are  the  characteristics  of  my  knowledge  of  his  past?  What 
I  get  from  him  are  certain  conceptual  ideas,  identical  in  his  mind 
and  mine,  coming  to  me  through  the  so-called  interpretation  of 
his  words  and  gestures.  These  I  render  vivid  and  full  by  asso- 
ciating therewith  a  mass  of  imagery  whose  substance  has  been  de- 
rived from  my  own  individual  experiences.  The  place  of  this 
imagery  is  filled  in  his  knowledge  of  his  own  past  by  memories, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  are  of  the  stuff  of  the  original  experience 
which  he  reports.  Here  then  is  the  difference  between  his  knowl- 
edge of  his  own  past  and  mine.  So  far  as  he  portrays  his  past 
through  concepts — and  all  description  is  such  a  portrayal — he  is 
knowing  it  through  a  material  which  is  other  than  his  memory, 
and  a  fortiori  other  than  the  past  experience  itself ;  and  I,  in  re- 
ceiving this  through  communication,  know  in  the  same  terms.  But 
in  his  memories,  the  concrete  filling  of  his  description,  he  relives 
the  past,  whereas  I,  through  imagination,  can  picture  it  only 
through  signs  which,  though  similar,  are  other  than  that  which 
is  signified.  Another  man's  memory  cannot  become  mine,  any 
more  than  his  past  can  become  my  past — this  he  cannot  give  me 
through  communication.  The  same  facts  are  of  course  true  when 
I  read  the  written  report  of  an  eye-witness.  WTien  Rousseau 
describes  the  aqueduct  which  he  built  under  the  roots  of  a  tree 
in  his  uncle's  yard,  however  vivid  the  description,  it  is  not  his 
memory  that  I  get,  but  his  conceptualized  description.  The  differ- 
ence here  is  the  same  as  that  between  my  Imowledge  of  San 
Francisco  before  I  was  there  and  that  which  I  have  now  that  I 
have  seen  the  city.  The  one  was  purely  conceptual,  derived  from 
the  descriptions  of  others,  made  vivid  and  full  by  means  of 
imagery  derived  from  experiences  of  similar  places  which  I  had 


lOS        I' iiirrrsilif  of  California  I'uhlicaiions  in  J'hilosopliif.  I  Vol.  2 

seen,  sui)i)l('iii('nl('(l  hy  |)liot(»j,'raplis  and  [)aint,iiif^.  'I'ln-  otiier  is 
of  tli(>  sfiifT  of  San  Kranfisco  itself.  'Hw,  dilTcrfnec  in  tho  cliar- 
a<'f('r  (if  the  r-cc(i«;nil  ion  of  an  olijed  froiri  a  description,  and  the 
rcco^niifion  of  it  when  one  luus  already  seen  it,  points  baek  to  the 
fundamental  di.sfinction  whicli  we  have  been  elaborating.  "Fam- 
iliarity" implies  the  reawakening  of  an  experience  that  one  has 
already  po.s.sessed.  There  is  a  principial  difference  between  even 
tlu!  most  fragmentary  experience  and  the  most  accurate  descrip- 
tion of  it.    It  is  like  that  between  picture  and  original. 

In  the  ca.se  of  knowledge  derived  from  most  so-called  history, 
one  is  even  further  removed  from  the  original  experiences  de- 
scribed. To  be  sure,  such  knowledge  has  its  ultimate  source  in  the 
reports  of  eye-witnesses.  But  it  does  not  reach  us  unalloyed. 
It  conies  reinterpreted,  remoulded  by  the  private  thoufrhts  of 
the  historian.  And  however  accurate  the  story  may  be,  I  no 
more  relive  those  experiences  than  I  behold  my  friend  in  the 
photograph. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  knowledge  of  the  past  illustrates  the 
truth  of  both  of  the  chief  theories  of  knowledge — in  memory, 
of  the  presentative,  in  report,  of  the  representative.  According 
to  the  first,  the  content  of  the  knowing  process  is  numerically 
other  than  the  object  knoAvn,  and  the  two  have  an  external  rela- 
tion to  each  other.  According  to  the  second,  the  immanent  con- 
tent is  part  of  the  object,  whence  the  latter  is  itself  partly  im- 
manent, and  the  relation  between  the  two  intimate.  The  object 
known  is,  on  the  former  view,  transcendent ;  knowledge  is  a  cor- 
respondence between  the  immanent  content  and  the  object.  Ac- 
cording to  the  latter,  the  object  is  the  whole  of  which  the  imman- 
ent content  is  a  part,  and  knowledge  is  the  being  in  mind  of  such 
a  part.  It  is  usually  assumed  that  either  one  or  the  other  of  these 
theories  must  be  true.  Yet  the  difference  between  them  is  not 
absolute.  Like  all  other  natural  distinctions,  it  is  fluid — a  matter 
of  more  or  less.  In  all  varieties  of  knowledge,  as  will  be  shown 
in  some  detail  farther  on,  both  are  interwoven.  ^Ve  have  as- 
serted that  in  all  report  there  is  given  to  us,  not  the  immediate 
experiences,  but  the  conceptualized  description  of  these;  just  as 
when  one  looks  at  a  scene  and  describes  it  to  us.  one  does  not 
give  us  the  scene  itself — or  one's  own  visual  sensations — but  one's 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  109 

ideas  of  it.  Yet  this  is  not  quite  the  truth.  The  original  experi- 
ence is  partially,  although  very  partially,  communicated.  For  the 
substance  of  all  ideas  consists  of  one 's  original  experiences.  The 
concept  is  elaborated  out  of  this  material.  The  past  event  which 
one  describes  has  entered,  however  fragmentarily,  into  the  de- 
scription. The  concept  is  the  quintessence  of  all  one 's  experience, 
of  this  as  well  as  of  the  past. 

Hence,  so  far  as  the  report  is  that  of  an  eye-witness,  the 
knowledge  received  through  it  is,  at  least  to  a  minute  extent,  pre- 
sentative.  Even  when  it  is  second-hand  "history,"  some  touch 
of  the  original  remains.  In  a  quite  literal  sense,  if  only  to  a 
minute  extent,  we  all  share  our  experiences  with  one  another 
and  possess  as  a  heritage  those  of  the  generations.  Yet  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  kinds  of  knowledge  remains.  The  idea 
that  is  used  in  representative  knowledge  is  for  the  most  part  a 
copy,  not  the  original  itself.  The  concept  which  is  used  to  de- 
scribe an  experience,  being  the  precipitate  of  all  one's  experi- 
ences, is  remoulded  only  to  a  small,  sometimes  to  an  infinitesimal 
extent,  by  this  particular  one.  To  be  accurate,  however,  we 
should  speak,  not  of  presentative  knowledge  through  memory 
and  representative  knowledge  through  report,  but  of  more  or 
less  presentative  or  representative  knowledge.  For  the  converse 
fact  is  true — there  are  representative  elements  in  so-called  mem- 
ory. Not  all  is  strictly  memory,  much  is  interpretation,  "imag- 
ination," and,  what  is  more  important,  there  are  always  con- 
ceptual elements,  characterizations,  that  is,  judgments,  recogni- 
tions as  "this"  or  "that,"  of  "this  sort"  or  of  "that  sort," 
and  whatever  else  there  be  of  simultaneous  running  comment. 
Nevertheless,  since  each  kind  of  knowledge  is  preponderantly  of 
one  character,  we  are  justified  in  speaking  shortly  of  presentative 
and  of  representative  knowledge. 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  thus  far  we  have  treated  only 
of  the  knowledge  of  past  experience.  What  of  the  knowledge  of 
past  physical  events,  say  of  the  Lisbon  earthquake,  or  of  past 
geologic  ages  before  there  was  any  human  experience?  Since, 
of  course,  all  knowledge  of  these  things  comes  through  human 
experience,  directly  or  indirectly,  such  experience,  so  far  as  repre- 
sentative, involves  that  the  knowledge  of  these  is  also  representa- 


Ill)         (I  nirrrsilif  of  dalifoniid  I'uhlirations  in  I'hilnsnph]).   I  Vol.  2 

tivc.  Ilcncr  ull  know  lr(li,'c  of  pliysiciil  cvciilx,  so  far  as  based  on 
iiircrcnlial  coiislnict ion  and  on  tlif  reports  of  otiiers,  is  repro- 
sctilalivc.  Since  tlifi)U^,di  iiiriiiorv  the  oi-i^'inai  experience  \n 
partly  rcinslatcd  and  prescntatively  known,  whatever  cognitive 
eliaraclcr  the  orifjinal  experience  possessed  will  also  be  poss&ssed 
by  memory.  Of  this,  knowledf^e  of  the  self,  won  by  "innere 
AnschauiUKj,"  is,  of  conr.se.  pre,sentativ(»;  knowledge  of  physical 
objects  is  presentative  and  representative:  the  former  so  far  as 
ade(juate,  that  is,  so  far  as  depending  on  .sensation  in  which  the 
object  is  given ;  the  latter,  so  far  as  dependent  on  reproduction. 
For  example,  in  the  perception  of  a  house,  the  side  which  I  "see" 
is  given  in  sen.sation,  presented  ;  the  sensory  elements  are  identical 
with  the  pliysical  being  of  the  house;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
back  of  it,  that  which  I  "imagine"  or  automatically  "infer"  to 
exist,  is  knowTi  through  reproduced  ideas,  the  material  of  which 
was  supplied  out  of  other  experiences — is  known,  then,  repre- 
sentatively. 

So  far,  we  have  simply  exhibited  the  dimorphic  character  of 
historical  knowledge.  Now,  each  form  involves  manifold  difficul- 
ties, which  must  be  obviated  before  we  can  proceed.  AVe  shall 
begin  with  the  consideration  of  representative  knowledge ;  for  its 
difficulties,  being  chiefly  epistemological,  enter  naturally  into  this 
connexion,  while  those  of  the  presentative  kind,  being  mainly 
metaphysical,  will  best  be  considered  when  we  discuss  the  nature 
of  time. 

CHAPTER  11 

THE  NATURE  AND  POSSIBILITY  OF  REPRESENTATIVE 
KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE  PAST 

^lany  doubts  have  been  raised  as  to  the  possibility  of  repre- 
sentative knowledge,  and  these  doubts  become  more  forcible  in 
the  case  of  knowledge  of  the  past. 

In  the  fii-st  place,  it  is  objected  that  one  cannot  define  knowl- 
edge as  the  resemblance  between  idea  and  object.  Two  things 
that  are  similar  cannot  be  said  to  know  the  one  the  other.  The 
idea  must  be  used  as  a  representative  of  the  object,  and,  if  so 
used,  the  resemblance  of  the  two  must  itself  be  known,  for  only 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knoicledge.  Ill 

on  the  ground  of  its  resemblance  could  the  idea  pass  for  knowl- 
edge of  the  object.  But  if  knowledge  of  the  resemblance  is  neces- 
sary for  the  definition  of  knowledge  through  representation,  that 
knowledge  cannot  be  itself  a  matter  of  representation,  for  if  it 
were,  an  infinite  regress  of  the  illegitimate  kind  would  result.^ 
Thus  knowledge  cannot  occur  through  representation;  for  sup- 
posed representative  knowledge  rests  on  knowledge  of  another 
kind.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  knowledge  of  the  past,  representa- 
tion would  be  impossible;  for  if,  as  is  usually  supposed,  only 
present  ideas  exist,  one  could  never,  by  confronting  them  with 
their  objects,  find  out  that  they  resembled  each  other.  How, 
indeed,  could  an  idea  resemble  that  which  is  not?  How  could  a 
term  which  exists  have  a  relation  to  one  that  is  non-existent? 

Not  only  must  I  know  resemblance  in  some  way  other  than 
through  representation,  I  must  know  otherwise  both  my  ideas 
and  the  objects  known,  in  order  to  discriminate  between  the  two. 
How  could  I  discount  my  ideas  in  comparison  with  the  reality 
to  which  I  refer  them,  unless  in  some  other  way  I  know  that 
reality  also?  If  my  knowledge  of  the  reality  were  itself  only  a 
poor  idea,  I  should  have  to  have  a  second  idea — and  if  this  also 
were  only  a  poor  idea,  another  with  which  to  discount  that,  and 
so  on  in  infinitum.  In  other  words,  how  do  I  ever  know  that 
idea  is  idea  and  not  reality?  For  by  hypothesis,  in  this  case, 
idea  is  all  that  I  have. 

It  is  by  a  subtile  error,  the  objector  would  urge,  that  you  feel 
that  somehow  you  can  at  once  know  that  your  idea  is  not  reality 
and  yet  know  the  past  through  the  idea  which  you  disparage. 
For  you  actually  do,  in  your  thought,  begin  to  carry  out  that 
infinite  regress  referred  to  above.  That  is  to  say,  you  have  an 
idea,  and  so  long  as  you  do  not  reflect  you  take  it  for  a  direct 
experience  of  the  past;  but,  as  soon  as  you  do  reflect,  you  get  a 
new  and  richer  idea  which  you  now  take  to  be  a  direct  experi- 
ence of  reality  and  in  comparison  with  which  you  discount  your 
former  idea.  The  unrevised  idea  you  take  for  reality ;  but,  after 
climbing  a  few  steps  of  this  ladder,  you  conclude — and  quite 
rightly  from  your  own  point  of  view — that  in  no  case  do  you 


2  Rickert,  Gegenstand  der  ErJcenntnis,  p.  84.     On  the  infinite  regress,  see 
Russell,  Principles  of  Mathematics,  Ifs  55  and  99. 


1  ]'2        University  of  California  J'uhlications  in  I'ltilosophy.  I  Vol.  2 

iTiicli  Ihv  ul)j('('t  itscir,  tliat  nil  is  idea.  For  (jf  course  it'  no 
siiigh!  idea  hriiifjs  you  nearer  the  object,  an  infinite  series  will 
fail. 

Against  llic  view  that  rcpn'smtalion  couhl  ever  give  us  the 
ideal  of  knowledge,  even  if  it  did  give  us  partial  knowledge,  there 
is  urircil  an  (•Itjcction  i>ut  in  contrary  ways  by  the  upholders  of 
two  very  difTerent  theories  of  truth.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  said 
that  if  the  truth  of  an  idea  be  defined  as  its  complete  corres- 
pondence with  its  object,  when  the  stage  of  completeness  would 
ha\i'  been  reached,  the  idea  would  be  the  reality.  Complete  simi- 
larity is  identity.  The  idea  known  to  resemble  reality  would 
have  become  reality  known  directly.  If  the  truth  of  an  idea  is 
defined  as  the  similarity  of  idea  and  object,  the  definition  inevit- 
ably destroys  the  theory  which  it  was  meant  to  express.  For, 
what  can  adequately  represent  a  thing,  except  the  thing  itself? 
Although  our  memories  are  feeble  and  unreliable  spokesmen  of 
our  former  lives,  what  voice  could  tell  us  their  histories  except 
the  living  voice?  And  as  for  our  traditions  and  books,  could 
they  ever,  however  complete  and  faithful,  tell  us  the  truth,  unless 
they  were  themselves  the  truth  ? 

From  another  side,^  relying  still  on  the  assertion  that  com- 
plete similarity  must  be  identity,  it  is  urged  that  identity  between 
idea  and  object  can  never  exist.  For  not  even  the  content  or  the 
general  structure  of  the  relations  of  the  idea  could  ever  be  exactly 
similar  to  those  of  its  object,  for  however  far  such  similarity 
might  go,  the  idea,  as  an  event  in  my  life,  would  be  parted  in 
existence  from  the  object  as  an  event  in  the  past,  and,  as  experi- 
ences, each  would  have  a  peculiar  wholeness  and  individuality 
which  would  infect  the  similarity  in  content,  and  so  prevent  any 
genuine  identity.  But  if  there  can  be  no  identity,  then  knowl- 
edge is  impossible ;  or  if  identity  is  possible,  knowledge  is  not 
correspondence,  for  only  things  which  differ  in  part  can  corres- 
pond or  represent  one  another. 

These  objections  to  representative  knowledge  rest  for  the 
most  part  upon  a  misconception  of  it.  The  best  way  to  answer 
them  will  be  to  set  forth  a  correct  view  of  the  fact.    This  we 


3  Joachim,  Nature  of  Truth,  chap.  I. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  113 

shall  do  forthwith,  and  then  briefly  consider  the  objections  with 
special  reference  to  our  own  problem  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
past. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  modern  philosophy,  the  insight  was 
clear  that  knowledge  is  an  active  function  exercised  by  means 
of  ideas.  This  was  recognized  by  Descartes,  and  was  made  into 
a  principle  by  his  greater  pupil  Spinoza.*  Neither  perceived  any 
difficulty  in  the  fact  that  although  what  is  in  the  mind  are  ideas, 
yet  something  not  those  ideas  can  be  known  through  them.  How- 
ever, the  power  of  seeing  just  how  this  could  be  was  soon  lost 
even  by  some  of  the  disciples  of  the  great  master,  and  the  result 
was  the  artificial  and  uninspired  theory  of  occasionalism.  The 
precious  vision  was  completely  denied  to  the  English  school,  and 
through  their  influence  the  blindness  has  descended  to  the  phe- 
nomenists  and  empirio-criticists  of  the  present  day.  Locke's 
definition  of  an  idea  as  "whatsoever  the  mind  perceives  in  itself 
or  is  the  immediate  object  of  perception,  thought,  or  under- 
standing," became  in  Berkeley's  hands  the  doctrine  that  we  know 
only  our  own  ideas.  Locke's  misapprehension  of  the  theory  of 
innate  ideas,  Berkeley's  and  Hume's  failure  to  render  an  ade- 
quate account  of  universals  and  of  the  "immensities  and  eter- 
nities," resulted  from  the  same  blindness. 

Against  the  view  that  it  is  the  immediate  content  of  the 
knowing  process  which  either  is  known  in  the  cognitive  repre- 
sentative act  (although  of  course  it  may  be  known  by  another 
act)  or  itself  knows  merely  by  being  like  the  object,  we  assert 
that  there  is  known  an  object  transcendent  to  the  immediate  con- 
tent, that  is,  one  that  is  not  the  content  itself,  and  yet  that  it 
is  the  idea  which  knows,  because  not  a  mere  content,  but  part  of 
the  act  of  a  subject.  We  claim  that  cognition  is  a  property  of 
ideas,  just  as  translucence  is  of  glass.  Under  certain  conditions 
ideas  have  a  peculiar  property  which  makes  them  cognitive :  they 
become  objectifying;  they  carry  with  them  a  reference  to  an 
object  and  also  an  indication  of  the  character  of  the  object.  This 
reference  to  an  object,  this  sense  of  another,  is  part  of  their  very 
nature.    Of  their  own  accord,  ideas  attribute  their  characters  to 


*  Spinoza,  Ethics,  Part  2,  xliii,  schol. ;  xlix,  proof. 


I  1  I        nnirrrsihf  of  California  Publications  in  riiilosnjjhu.  I  Vol.  2 

.•iiioIImt.  'I'lius  every  idea  is  u  judj^'inenL  of  tlie  form  "Ali  is."' 
Tlie  cofjnitive  oxporioiuro  is  ossontially,  in  the  first  place,  an 
exix'rieiice  of  charaeter;  lliii.s  wlim  T  look  <it,  the  sky  I  have  a 
"blue  experience,"  and,  secondly,  it  is  an  experience  of  this 
ehiii-aeter  as  helonginjx.  ii'>t  to  itself  alone  but  to  another,  "an 
ox|)ei-ieiice  of  object."  The  eof^nitive  experience  is  a  declaration  : 
There  is  an  object  such  as  I  experience.  Sometimes,  however, 
there  is  a  declaration  of  beinj?,  without  much  indication  of  char- 
acter. The  more  adequate  the  idea,  however,  the  more  fully  does 
it  reveal  the  nature  of  the  object,  the  more  nearly  similar  is  it 
to  the  latter,  until  finally,  in  the  case  of  perfect  knowledge,  it 
claims  identity  with  its  object.  Yet  before  this  last  stage  is 
reached  one  does  not  need  to  bring  idea  and  object  together,  see 
that  tliey  resemble  one  another,  and  then  use  the  one  as  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  other;  the  idea  nscs  itself  as  a  representation.  In 
cognition  one  becomes  aware  that  there  is  an  object  of  such  and 
such  a  character;  one  does  not  need  to  know  the  idea  as  idea, 
for  one  may  be  filled  with  the  objectifying  experience  itself. 

Ideas  get  this  power  of  representing  because  they  are  not 
"lifeless  like  pictures  on  a  panel,"  but  as  living  and  palpitating 
as  an  animated  body.  And  this  life  they  get  from  ultimate  con- 
tact with  the  reality  which  they  know.  As  we  have  seen,  there 
is  an  ingredient  of  presentation  in  all  representation.  In  every 
idea  there  is,  at  least,  an  infinitesimal  fragment  of  what  it  means. 
Through  this  it  gets  its  reference,  its  intention.  This  tiny  part 
is  the  life  of  the  idea;  and  just  as  a  bit  of  living  matter  will 
assimilate  to  itself  from  its  environment  foreign  matter,  and  out 
of  it  construct  a  complete  organism,  so  this  fragment  of  the 
object  will  draw  to  itself  all  material  within  reach  and,  so  far 
as  it  can,  make  itself  like  that  whole  from  which  it  came.  Then, 
although  not  that  whole,  the  idea  will  mean  it;  and  will  know 
it.  the  more  completely  it  has  constructed  its  image. 

How  shall  we  prove  that  ideas  can  mean  a  whole  of  which 
they  are  parts  or  of  which  they  possess  an  image?  How  shall 
we  prove  that  they  have  intent?  Only  by  exhibiting  those  cases 
where  the  ability  of  ideas  to  transcend  themselves  most  strik- 
ingly appears,  and  where,  if  transcendence,  meaning,  intent,  are 


0  Compare  Brentano.  Psychologic,  Buch  II,  Capitel  7,  7. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  115 

denied,  palpable  absurdities  arise.  Accordingly,  we  shall  demon- 
strate this  power  in  a  few  telling  cases,  and  then,  by  leading  down 
to  the  less  obvious  ones,  show  that  it  obtains  in  all,  even  in  our 
simplest  every  day  cognitions. 

Consider,  first,  our  ideas  of  the  "immensities  and  eternities". 
Take  the  ideas  of  infinite  space  and  time.  We  undoubtedly  mean 
something  by  these  ideas.  Moreover,  we  mean  their  objects  as 
wholes.  "When  we  think  of  them,  Ave  can  refer  to  every  detail 
which  they  contain.  Yet  every  detail  of  space  or  time,  every  point 
and  every  instant,  is  surely  not  in  the  mind.  "We  can,  if  called 
upon,  declare  some  of  the  more  universal  characters  of  space  and 
time;  we  can  say  that  they  are  order  systems,  three-  and  one- 
dimensional  respectively,  continuous,  and  so  on.  But  we  do  not 
mean  merely  what  we  can  enumerate ;  we  mean  every  single 
element  which  only  the  most  thorough  investigation  of  space  and 
time  could  reveal.  It  was  because  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume  de- 
manded that  what  an  idea  means  should  be  present  bodily  in 
the  idea,  that  they  denied  the  being,  phj'sical  or  conceptual, 
of  the  infinite. 

Consider,  next,  the  idea  which  is  perhaps  the  most  wonderful 
of  all:  the  idea  of  the  universe.  And  by  this  idea  we  mean  the 
absolute  sum-total  of  everything — the  past,  the  present,  the 
future,  and  the  eternal  world.  Now,  are  we  to  believe  that  when 
we  refer  to  the  universe  it  is  a  part  of  ourselves,  a  piece  of  our 
minds?  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  meaning  of  the  idea  is 
reducible  to  so  much  of  the  world  as  we  have  known  directly  and 
somehow  got  in  the  mind.  For  of  all  that  we  can  enumerate  in 
heaven  above,  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  waters  under  the 
earth,  we  can  say,  after  putting  it  together — this  is  not  all  that 
we  mean.  And  what  we  do  enumerate  is  for  the  most  part  itself 
plainly  only  meant,  not  in  any  sense  present  in  the  mind;  for, 
with  the  obvious  exception  of  what  lies  before  me  in  space  or  is 
felt  within  my  skin  or  remembered,  the  rest  is  supplied  by 
imagination  of  the  future  and  distant.  And  of  memory  we  are 
aware,  when  we  reflect,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  is  not 
vivid  and  full,  that  it  is  not  our  full  meaning  itself.  Moreover, 
we  can  see  that  this  intent  of  our  memory  is  not  reducible  to  the 
continual  coming  in,  through  association,  of  ever  more  ideas, 


IK)        Ihiirnsihf  nf  CnJifornin  ruhlirnlifDis  in  I'hUoanpIn/.  (Vol.2 

lli('rt'l)y  making  racli  later  lillin^  of  flu-  idoa  riclicr  and  every 
earlier  one  comparatively  poorer.  Althouf^h  this  doe.s  happen, 
althoujxli  an  idea  doi'.s  i^wv.  rise  to  tliis  (;hain  of  assoeiated  ideas, 
wherehy  it  hoeonios  more  prociso  and  adequate,  yet  its  meaning 
(  annnf  1)(>  rodueed  either  to  the  ehain  itself  or  to  the  linking,'  of 
one  element  of  the  chain  to  another.  For  when  the  chain  is  com- 
plete it  confesses  it.self  as  not  all  that  it  means,  and  each  link,  if 
(jnestioned  apart  from  tlie  others,  would  humbly  plead  that  it  too 
was  only  a  poor  part  and  meant  something  more.  Thus  even 
when  the  idea  is  part  of  what  it  knows,  it  may  through  its  self- 
transcending  intent  know  something,  the  whole,  which  is  not 
merely  itself.  Nor  does  one  need  to  go  to  the  infinite  for  illustra- 
tion of  the  fact  of  meaning.  One  can  find  illustrations  among  our 
most  common  ideas.  Consider  our  ideas  of  the  ocean,  of  the 
earth,  of  the  visual  form  of  a  book.  We  mean  the  book  as  a  recti- 
linear solid,  but  we  have  never  seen  it  thus.  To  be  sure,  we  have 
put  the  idea  together  out  of  different  views,  but  we  mean,  not 
these,  but  the  unitary  object,  with  all  its  color  and  sensuous  com- 
pleteness such  as  would  appear  if  we  could,  although  we  cannot, 
intuit  it. 

The  indispeusablencss  of  meaning  as  an  element  in  the  cog- 
nitive function  is  effectively  exemplified  by  the  necessity  of  the 
use  of  the  little  words  all,  every,  anrj,  a,  some,  and  the.^  By  means 
of  these  we  are  enabled  to  refer  to  objects  which  we  have  never 
presentatively  known.  Thus,  by  means  of  the  first  two  we  can 
make  reference  to  a  whole  class  of  individuals  of  which  we  have 
never  known  more  than  a  single  instance.  We  should  be  unable 
to  do  much  reasoning  if  we  could  not  make  this  reference;  for 
a  large  part  of  thinking  involves  the  notion  of  class,  which  in- 
volves the  notion  of  all;  without  it  we  should  never,  in  any  prac- 
tical fashion,  be  able  to  deal  with  the  group  unless  we  knew  each 
individual  member.  The  concept  of  any,  as  fundamental  in  reas- 
oning as  that  of  all,  since  it  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  notion  of  the 
variable,  is  perhaps  even  more  significant  in  this  connexion.  For 
by  it  we  can  refer,  not  merely  to  a  whole  set  of  entities  in  a  mass 
which  we  do  not  know  individually,  but  to  a  single  individual 
in  a  class  which  nevertheless  we  cannot  designate  as  such.     To 


•5  See  Russell,  Principles  of  Mathematics,  chap.  V,  ' '  Denoting. ' ' 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  117 

quote  Russell,  the  concept  "any  term,"  "does  not  denote,  prop- 
erly speaking,  an  assemblage  of  terms,  but  denotes  one  term,  only 
not  one  particular  definite  term."  To  adopt  a  phrase  of  the 
same  author,  "any  man"  is  an  object  which,  if  one  could  not 
meet  it  in  the  street,  one  surely  could  not  get  into  the  mind — for 
one  could  no  more  find  it  in  the  mind  by  introspection  than  one 
could  find  it  in  the  street  by  looking  for  it. 

As  for  the  word  "the,"  the  right  of  the  present  theorj^  to 
the  use  of  it  would,  I  suppose,  be  denied  by  some  of  our  opponents. 
For  "the"  denotes  an  individual,  and  they  will  tell  us  that  we 
cannot  provide  for  the  knowledge  of  individuals.  All  ideas  are 
of  universal  characteristics ;  so  when  we  know  through  ideas,  we 
cannot  know  the  individual.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  say  that  all 
ideas  are  of  universals.  To  be  sure,  by  themselves,  as  mere  con- 
tents, they  define  only  universals.  Yet  penetrating  their  being  is 
the  intent  "unique  member  of  a  class,"  which  we  express  by  the 
little  word  "the."  This  is  the  tang  of  the  object  itself,  left  by 
that  element  of  presentation,  however  minute,  which,  as  we  know, 
inheres  in  all  ideas.  Such,  we  believe,  is  a  correct  view  of  the 
nature  of  representative  knowledge.  We  are  now  in  a  position 
to  reply  to  the  objections  which  evoked  the  discussion.  To  what 
extent  does  the  theory  that  ideas  have  intent  remove  these  objec- 
tions ? 

We  admit  that  representative  knowledge  is  not  the  only  kind 
of  knowledge,  and  even  that  it  involves,  remotely,  presentative 
knowledge.  But  this  does  not  impugn  its  relatively  independent 
character.  It  constitutes,  moreover,  by  far  the  most  extensive 
part  of  our  knowledge.  Almost  all  knowledge  of  the  past  is  of 
this  variety. 

We  admit  that  one  cannot  know  an  object  through  the  mere 
possession  of  a  similar  idea.  The  idea  must  have  a  cognitive  func- 
tion, must  be  endowed  w^ith  the  life  of  intention.  But  when  thus 
endowed,  our  theory  escapes  the  charge  of  circularity  which  can 
be  brought  against  the  crude  form  of  representative  theory.  One 
does  not  know  an  object  because  one  knows  that  one  possesses 
an  idea  which  resembles  that  object.  Neither  the  idea  nor  the 
resemblance  between  the  idea  and  the  object  need  be  known ;  the 
resembling  idea  knows.    Of  course  all  these  elements  can,  in  turn, 


1  IS         I'nin  rsilji  of  ('nlifornia  rnhlirnlions  in  I'hilosopkjf.   I  V"'-  2 

l)c  ktiduii  hy  aiiotlicr  cxprricnci-,  Imt  this  knowlcdK*'  *>f  tlx-  know- 
in^j  (Iocs  not  Ciller  into  tlic  (IfCinition  of  knowinj^. 

We  lijivc  alrciitly  dealt  with  tlic  gciuTal  objection  at^ainsl  our 
view,  to  the  elTcct  thai  unless  we  could  "K^t  outside  of  our  ideas" 
we  could  never  discriminate  between  an  idea  and  an  object.  Con- 
sitler,  however,  the  ca.se  of  the  past.  When  I  think  of,  say,  the 
deatli  of  Spinoza,  uidess  I  reflect,  the  thou{jht  never  ari.ses  that 
my  idea  is  only  a  picture.  In  knowing,  I  am  knowing;  I  am  not 
rellecting  on  the  problem  of  knowledge.  Yet  when  I  do  reflect, 
I  awake  to  the  fact  that  it  was  only  indirect  knowledge  that  I 
was  engaged  in,  not  direct  witnessing  of  the  event.  And  I  do 
this  among  other  rea.sons  for  the  one  suggested,  namely,  because 
I  compared  this  idea  with  a  new  and  richer  one.^  And  this  pro- 
cess can  indeed  be  carried  on  indefinitely.  Every  inadequate 
idea  can  be  discredited  by  a  new  and  richer  idea.  And  further, 
it  is  true,  as  was  said,  that  never  by  this  infinite  process  of  idea- 
tion can  I  get  the  past  itself  as  it  existed.  But  although  we 
admit  the  process  and  the  failure,  we  deny  that  the  failure  is  a 
failure  in  knowledge.  For,  although  we  nowhere  get  nearer  to 
the  existence  of  the  past,  we  get  ever  nearer  to  a  more  adequate 
knowledge  of  it.  Even  the  first  idea  knew,  and  the  revised  idea 
knew  better. 

Finally,  the  objection  that  if  our  ideas  were  ideally  complete 
they  would  he  the  past  and  therefore  could  not  represent  it,  is 
true,  but  harmless.  It  is  true  that  the  most  complete  idea  contains 
its  object.  Now,  in  the  case  of  the  past,  this  can  never  be;  for 
the  whole  past,  as  we  shall  prove  in  our  next  chapter,  cannot 
recur.  Yet  because  complete  knowledge  is  impossible,  partial 
knowledge  is  not  therefore  impossible.  Through  representation 
we  have  such  knowledge,  and  genuine  knowledge. 

As  for  the  objection  of  Joachim,  to  the  effect  that  idea  and 
object  cannot  be  alike,  because,  in  the  case  of  knowledge  of  the 
past,  they  belong  to  different  moments  of  time,  have  different  re- 
lations, and  so  must  be  different,  it  plainly  rests  on  the  so-called 
internal  view  of  relations.  The  answer  to  it  consists  in  the  asser- 
tion of  the  opposed  view.  That  relations  may  be  external,  I  take 
to  have  been  proved  by  Russell,  in  his  work  The  Principles  of 

'  See  page  111. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  119 

Mathematics,  chapter  xxvii,  U  428  and  Tj  49.  However  this  be,  it 
is  a  fact  of  experience  that  there  can  be  similar  objects  in  different 
settings,  that  is,  with  different  relations.  One  hesitates  to  point 
to  the  two  leaves  of  a  tree  or  to  picture  and  original.  I  cannot  see 
how  logic  can  gainsay  such  experiencas.  But  only  a  mistaken 
logic  undertakes  this.  Even  if  objects  in  different  relations  can- 
not be  identical,  the  representative  theory  is  untouched;  for  all 
that  it  demands  is  similarity;  it  does  not  demand  complete 
identity. 

CHAPTEE  III 

THE  NATURE  OF  TIME 

Thus  far  Ave  have  investigated  the  knowledge  of  the  past 
wholly  from  the  side  of  the  knowing.  We  have  reached  our 
conclusions  quite  independently  of  any  assumptions  as  to  the 
being  and  nature  of  the  object  of  knowing.  Now  that  we  have 
outlined  our  own  theory  of  knowledge  of  the  past  from  the  side 
of  the  idea,  if  w^e  would  complete  that  view  we  can  no  longer 
avoid  justifying  our  assumptions  explicitly  by  determining  the 
precise  nature  and  being  of  the  past.  Briefly  put,  our  view  has 
been  that  we  know  the  past  through  ideas  in  which  are  present 
characters  like  those  of  the  object,  which  characters  are  an- 
nounced by  the  idea  itself  as  belonging  to  the  object.  The  char- 
acters are  immediately,  instinctively,  and  automatically  referred 
to  an  object,  in  the  knowing  act ;  the  object  thus  appears  either 
partly  in  person,  in  memory,  or  vicariously,  in  idea ;  this  appear- 
ance is  the  direct  knowledge  of  the  object.  Knowledge  is  the 
more  complete  the  more  fully  the  characters  of  the  object  appear 
in  the  idea.  "We  have  already  examined  some  of  the  difficulties 
which  such  an  account  of  knowledge  has  to  face,  both  in  general 
and  with  regard  to  the  past.  There  are  others  still  unsolved.  If 
the  memory  experience  be  partly  identical  with  the  original,  the 
problem  arises  as  to  how  one  thing  can  exist  at  two  times.  Fur- 
ther, does  a  past  event  exist  before  it  is  remembered?  If  so, 
what  sort  of  existence  did  it  possess?  If  not,  how  can  a  thing 
which  has  once  ceased  to  exist,  return  into  existence?     Again, 


I'JO         r  iiirirsil  !i  of  ('(tlifornid  l'\ihlii(iliinis  in  l'liilt)S0}}li  ij.   I  ^'"l-  2 

siipposr  tilt'  p;ist  tines  iii)t  fxisl.  ht»\v  t-aii  ;my  vifw  ni;il<f  knowl- 
(•(Ij^(!  of  tiic  n()?i-('xisti'iil  inti'lliuil'l"'.  ainl  in  particular  how  can 
H  view  do  SI)  wiiit'li  rc^'ards  kiiDwIfdi^c  as  adt'(|iiatf  so  far  i\n 
idea  and  ohji'ft  an-  similar?  How  can  a  tliinj^  wliidi  exists  be 
similar  to  another  which  docs  not  exist?  On  the  other  hand,  if 
for  the  purp(xses  of  knowlcdf^e  we  must  suppose  that  the  past 
exists,  how  is  it  truly  past  ?  Th(»  answer  to  these  questions  re- 
quires an  investigation  of  the  wlit)lc  prtiblcm  of  time. 

1.  The  Tkmporai.  Experience 

As  we  now  possess  it,  time  is  a  very  complex  concept,  devel- 
oped in  the  sei-vice  of  multifarious  interests,  and  involving  the 
metaphysical  assumptions  of  common-sense  philosophy.  In  the 
light  of  this,  we  feel,  with  Professor  Royce,^  that  "much  of  the 
difficulty  that  appears  in  our  metaphysical  views  about  time  is 
due  ....  to  lack  of  naivete  and  directness  in  viewing  the  tem- 
poral aspects  of  reality,"  and  that  in  order  to  get  clear  and  fresh 
conceptions  we  mu.st  go  to  the  source  whence  all  have  flowed,  the 
immediate  time-experience  itself. 

The  fundamental  aspect  of  the  temporal  experience  is  that  of 
change,  the  experience  of  the  influx  of  elements  around  a  core 
relatively  stable,  and  of  their  disintegration.  In  relation  to  one 
another  they  constitute  the  so-called  time-form.  What  are  the 
obvious  characters  of  the  time-form,  as  illustrated  by  the  familiar 
examples  of  the  melody,  the  line  of  verse  when  uttered,  the  beats 
of  a  metronome  ?  Plainly,  serial  order  and  irreversible  sense : 
several  elements  present  together  in  an  arrangement  of  one  after 
the  other,  with  univocal  direction.  But  these  traits  do  not  serve 
to  distinguish  time-form  from  other  forms.  The  words  which 
constitute  the  verse  have  a  serial  order,  and  taken  together  with 
their  meaning  have  an  irreversible  direction.  The  distinguishing 
element  in  question  is  that  of  cliange.  Just  to  see  the  words  on 
a  page  is  to  have  an  experience  in  itself  wholly  non-temporal, 
which,  if  it  were  to  last,  would  be  an  experience  of  eternity.  But 
as  soon  as  we  repeat  the  line  the  experience  is  transformed,  it  is 
now  one  of  change,  that  is,  of  coming  and  of  passing  away,  of 


8  The  H'orld  and  the  Individual,  2nd  series,  lecture  III. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  121 

novelty  which  becomes  familiarity.  The  static  meaning  has  be- 
come agitated  and  has  altered  its  posture ;  if  we  wish  a  static  pic- 
ture of  a  dynamic  thing,  we  may  liken  it  to  a  directed  line  of  dots 
which,  till  now  horizontal,  has  tipped  slightly,  up  or  down.  The 
elements  have  the  same  order  and  direction,  only  the  forward 
and  the  rearward  ones  have  somehow  been  displaced;  they  have 
been  marked,  the  former  with  the  brand  "new,"  the  latter  with 
the  brand  "familiar"  or  "departing." 

It  is  this  element  of  change  which  differentiates  time-form 
from  all  others,  making  it  unique  and  irreducible.  Novelty  and 
passing  do  not  belong  to  the  static  and  eternal  form  of  series. 
In  the  eternal  there  is,  to  be  sure,  variety  and  unity,  but  there 
is  not  novelty  and  losing.  There,  each  has  a  distinct  and  unique 
place;  but  all  places  are  filled;  there  is  no  passing  of  one  and 
rise  of  other.  Here,  elements  are  felt  as  entering  into  places  left 
vacant  by  others,  the  newcomers  crowding  out  the  old.  In  the 
eternal  and  static,  all  things  are  known ;  in  time,  acquaintance 
grows :  a  stranger  enters ;  he  departs  a  familiar  friend. 

The  direction  of  the  time-experience  is  determined  by  the  ex- 
perience of  novelty  passing  into  familiarity,  and  then  into  loss. 
The  new  comes  before  the  old,  the  old  before  the  decaying.  The 
new  must  always  enter  from  one  direction,  and  the  old  pass  out 
in  the  other. 

The  time-experience  is  not  primarily  volitional,  but  cognitive. 
It  is  most  striking  when  the  self  passively  endures  the  influx  of 
new  unsought  sensations.  Our  deeds  are  temporal  because  they 
are  creative  and  depend  on  change ;  our  will  looks  forward  be- 
cause it  grasps  at  something  new. 

At  the  lowest  level,  the  distinctions  of  past,  present,  and  future 
do  not  exist  in  full  development.  Yet  there  are  the  beginnings 
of  them.  An  element,  as  it  goes,  leaves  the  memory  of  itself, 
the  old  element  in  an  altered  form.  This  is  felt  as  past  because 
it  has  at  once  two  characters,  familiarity  and  loss.  It  is  familiar 
because  it  once  was  completely  ours,  and  is  now  partially  so.  The 
past  was  once  present,  and  memory  is  an  outgrowth  of  something 
always  with  us.  In  the  background  of  consciousness  elements  of 
the  past  exist,  and  all  remembering  is  a  completion  of  them. 
Memory  is  marked  with  the  sense  of  loss  because  it  comes  to  us 


]'2'2        I' iiiri  rsil !/  of  Califdrniti  I'Khlicnlioii.s  In  I'liilosojjlii/.   (  Vol.  2 

as  |)art  i)\'  a  wIkiIc  uliidi  Uf  caiumt  jjohscss,  yet  wlm-li  oiifc  was 
ours.  Here  a<,'airi  the  fact  of  (iH'aniii{.j  i.s  presupposed.  Tliroiij^'li 
till'  clcmciils  of  nicniory  we  look  to  iriorc,  of  which  tlicy  arc  parts, 
hut  not  the  whoh*.  Pa.st,  thcti.  are  those  elements  of  the  process 
of  chauKf  which.  Rraftinj;  themselves  on  to  the  permanent,  belong 
fo  a  wliolc.  once  ours,  Ituf  incapable  of  rein.statement. 

Certain  views  of  the  nature  of  pastuess  are  inaccurate.  I'ast- 
ncss  (Iocs  not  arise  out  of  the  felt  contrast  between  memorj'  and 
vivid  cxpci-icnce;  for  the  same  contrast  exists  in  the  case  of 
expectation.  Nor  does  it  come  throu{?h  desire,  the  straininj;:  after 
somethinfj:  and  finding'  that  we  cannot  get  it;  for  we  seek  in  the 
future  and  cannot  get.  Moreover,  the  past  cannot  adequately  be 
described  as  that  which,  in  contrast  with  the  future,  we  cannot 
alter;  for  the  inevitable  is  also  unalterable. 

Future  elements  are  felt  Jis  new.  They  cannot,  as  individuals, 
be  immediately  assimilated  to  the  old.  Only  through  the  concept, 
or  only  so  far  as  the  intent  of  an  expectation,  are  they  old,  and 
even  so  they  stand  out  contrasted  with  that  which  means  them. 
Here  again,  a  volitional  interpretation  is  insufficient.  We  cannot 
define  the  future  as  the  object  of  action,  as  that  which  we  can 
create  or  alter,  as  that  which  we  seek  and  can  get ;  for  much  comes 
unasked  and  inevitably.  An  object  is  not  primarily  future  be- 
cause we  strive  for  it,  but  because  it  is  a  possible  new  experience. 
It  is  future,  merely  if  we  represent  it  as  not  wholly  ours. 

Past  and  future  are  not  absolutely  distinct.  As  we  saw, 
future  objects  are  not  whollj'  unfamiliar.  So  far  as  expected,  or 
so  far  as  a  concept  fits  the  new  individual  experience,  it  was 
already  there.  Experience  is  a  unity,  and  the  universal  is  in 
the  particular.  The  so-called  future  grows  out  of  the  past,  and 
contains,  in  new  forms,  many  of  its  elements.  Only  the  wholly 
new  elements  can  be  called  absolutely  future.  Yet  they  come 
wrapt  up  in  the  old.  and  forthwith  become  old. 

The  full  development  of  the  distinctions  between  past,  present, 
and  future  requires  reflection.  The  felt  continuity  of  our  life 
must  be  splintered  into  three  disjointed  parts.  Objects  must  be 
reflected  upon,  and  the  memory  or  expectation  not  be  confused  as 
present  experiences  with  their  objects.  Once  more  we  come  upon 
the  fact  of  meaning.     The  memory  which  is  ours  and  present 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  123 

means  something  more  which  is  no  longer  ours  and  is  past;  the 
expectation,  also  present,  means  an  individual  experience,  not  yet 
possessed,  which  is  future.  Only  thus  can  arise  the  negativity, 
the  contrast,  the  holding  of  one  thing  over  against  another,  neces- 
sary for  the  experience  when  full  grown.  This  experience  in  its 
fullness  involves  the  thought,  first,  of  a  limited  range  of  existence, 
the  present,  and,  secondly,  of  another  field  which  does  not  belong 
to  the  first,  yet  which  once  did  belong  to  it,  the  past  and  future. 
In  contrast  with  an  eternal  realm  like  that  of  mathematics,  where 
an  element,  if  it  belongs  in  a  class,  always  belongs  there,  elements 
are  here  thought  of  as  excluded  from  a  class  to  which  they  once 
belonged  or  to  which  they  may  later  be  added.  The  consciousness 
of  time  implies  the  awareness  of  a  limitation  of  being  which 
cannot  be  overcome  by  knowledge.  But  the  experience  of  past- 
ness  is  not  simply  the  experience  of  a  genuine  limitation  in  being. 
It  is  not  sufficiently  describable  as  the  awareness  that  now  is  not 
then,  that  this  is  not  that.  For  it  is  also  the  experience  of  loss, 
and  loss  is  more  than  limitation.  This  feature,  being  one  of  the 
unique  characters  of  this  experience,  can  be  expressed  only  in 
terms  of  itself.  It  is  the  feeling  that  to  us  belonged  something 
which  we  have  no  longer. 

If  our  account  be  correct,  it  is  clear  that  axvy  attempt  to  find 
in  the  time-form  every  feature  of  the  time-experience,  and,  by 
applying  a  generalized  type  of  this  to  the  hypothetical  absolute, 
to  make  conceivable  a  retention  of  the  actual  time-distinctions 
of  our  finitude  within  an  all-embracing  experience,  is  futile.  The 
distinctions  of  past  and  present  are  not  completely  contained  in 
the  elements  which  belong  to  the  specious  present.  In  the  time- 
form  we  have,  to  be  sure,  earlier  and  later,  coming  and  going. 
One  element  does  not  occupy  the  same  place  as  another  in  the 
time-sequence,  and  one  is  more  forward  or  more  backward  in  the 
time-direction.  But  there  is  no  goyie,  no  lost.  When  I  hear  a  line 
of  verse,  the  first  words  are  not  "over  and  done  with"  at  the 
time  when  the  later  ones  arrive.  They  are  simply  behind  and 
fading,  but  not  faded;  passing,  but  not  past.  We  experience  past- 
ness  completely  when  we  reflectively  experience  loss.  Awareness 
of  difference  of  position  and  of  vividness  within  the  specious 
present,  or  even  of  a  change  of  these,  does  not  suffice  for  this 
experience. 


124        University  of  California  I'uhlicaliuns  in  I'liilosopin/.  \  Vol.  2 

The  clrmcnts  must  he  \\'\i  as  ahsi-iit  fioni  llic  six'ciDus  [)rf'Sf'nt, 
as  rxclmlcd  I'l-iini  all  llial  we  iiiiiiirdiatrly  experience.  The  felt 
cxi'lusivcricss  of  past  ami  picsciil  is  licncc  not  at  all  comparable 
to  lliat  of  one  point  (»ii  a  line  with  i-cfcrcnfo  to  another.  There 
one  point  is  simply  not  an(»tlH'r,  hnt  both  belong  to  the  same  nni- 
vcrsf  of  (iiscoui'sc.  In  lln'  temporal  experience,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  two  elements  exelude  each  other  from  the  same  universe. 
The  one  is  felt  to  have  a  character  wiiich  the  other  ha.s  lost, 
and  which  absolutely  differentiates  them.  They  belong  to  two 
ditferent  realms.  Tn  vain  does  one  endeavor  to  reconcile  the  in- 
completeness, strivin<?,  and  pursuit  which  are  admittedly  char- 
acteristic of  the  temporal  experience,  with  the  completeness,  at- 
tainment, and  repose  attributed  to  the  absolute  consciousness. 

2.  The  Scope  of  Time 

Thus  far  we  have  discovered  time  within  experience  only,  in 
the  coming  in  and  disintegration  of  its  elements.  But  nature  lies 
within  experience,  the  growth  and  decay  of  conscious  elements 
is  also  a  growth  and  decay  of  natural  elements.  I  watch  the 
burning  of  a  candle — the  wax  melts  and,  running  down,  accumu- 
lates on  the  mouth  of  the  receptacle.  Here  are  all  the  features 
of  change — the  coming  to  be  of  new  and  the  passing  away  of 
old  characters  around  a  central  persistence,  the  general  candle 
form.  Or  through  years  I  watch  an  organism.  I  perceive  growth 
and  correlated  therewith  always  decay,  yet.  despite  both,  identity 
and  continuity.  Is  this  apparently  temporal  character  an  illu- 
sion? 

The  belief  that  the  temporal  character  of  natural  objects  is 
an  illusion,  or,  in  other  words,  that  time  is  subjective,  is  based 
on  the  obvious  fact  that  we  never  find  anything  in  nature  unless 
we  also,  in  some  sense,  find  it  in  ourselves.  All  nature,  we  know, 
must,  in  a  way,  pass  through  the  self.  Perhaps  in  so  passing 
it  takes  on,  to  our  view,  characters,  among  Avhich  are  the  tem- 
poral, which  do  not  properly  belong  to  it. 

However,  the  fact  that  in  knowing  objects  we  Icnow  them  does 
not  prove  that  the  characters  we  find  in  them  are  subjective  only. 
For,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  of  the  nature  of  the  idea,  either  through 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  125 

containing  part  of  the  object  itself  or  through  a  copy  of  it,  to 
announce  its  own  characters  as  being  literally  and  objectively 
those  of  the  object.  Nevertheless,  no  epistemological  theory  would 
maintain  that  every  feature  of  the  knowing  state,  as  psychical 
fact,  belongs  to  the  object  which  appears  through  it.  We  have 
always  to  inquire,  how  much  of  the  idea  is  declared  by  it  to 
belong  to  the  object,  how  much  is  merely  its  own.  Every  epis- 
temological investigation  involves  the  separation  of  the  objective 
from  the  subjective.  The  question  is,  What  temporal  characters 
do  we  actually  observe  in  nature  ? 

In  the  arising  and  disappearing  of  elements  we  have  so  far 
discovered  the  essence  of  time.  And  this,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
nature  we  seem  clearly  to  observe.  Yet,  so  the  Kantian  would  ob- 
ject, what  we  always  find  both  in  ourselves  and  in  what  you  call 
"nature"  is  a  coming  of  such  elements  into  consciousness  and 
their  gradual  fading  away  out  of  it;  the  coming  and  going 
of  visual  sensations  into  and  out  of  the  field  of  consciousness 
really  constitutes  what  you  take  to  be  time  in  the  candle.  The 
objection  rests  upon  a  misunderstanding.  Only  figuratively 
should  one  think  of  the  elements  as  coming  and  going  "in  con- 
sciousness." Consciousness  is  nothing  besides  them.  It  is  no 
room  or  receptacle  which  contains  them.  Like  space,  it  is  simply 
a  whole  which  they  form.  Now,  elements  may  either  pass  from 
that  whole,  as  when  I  turn  my  face  from  the  candle,  and  so  have 
no  reason,  as  I  can  recover  them,  to  think  they  have  vanished ;  or 
else  they  may  decay  in  that  whole,  as  when,  in  my  sight,  the  candle 
burns  down  and  the  light  goes  out.  In  the  latter  case,  the  ele- 
ments are  irrecoverable,  and  have  vanished  not  merely  from  con- 
sciousness, but  from  existence. 

There  is  a  difference  between  passing  from  the  self  and  dis- 
integrating within  the  self.  Growth  and  disintegration  are  the 
differentiae  of  time ;  not  entering  and  leaving  the  self.  And  this 
growth  and  disintegration  we  observe  in  nature.  The  elements 
which  arise  in  nature  may  also  arise  into  the  self,  and  their  decay 
may  be  a  decay  in  both.  Not  coming  and  going  in  consciousness, 
but  coming  and  going  at  all,  make  up  the  essence  of  time. 

Yet  not  everything  which  we  associate  with  time  belongs  to 
nature  apart  from  consciousness.    In  nature  there  is  no  memory 


1  L'(!        (hiivrrsity  of  dalifnniiti  I'uhlications  in  Philosophy.  ( Vol.  2 

<»r  cxpcclal  idii.  Tlic  Mi<'iii(tr\-  wlndi  Ilriinj^'  sui)i)o.s('(l  to  1><;  a 
uiiivorsal  |)r-()|»cily  of  liviiij,'  niatlcr  is  iiof  n-ally  this.  Habit  and 
litTcdity  produce  another  like  tlic  old,  they  do  not  preserve  the 
old.  Or,  if  they  pi-cscrvc  the  old,  it  i.s  that  which  is  universal  in 
the  old,  not  Ihr  iiidividual.  Memory  alone  preserves  what  is 
individual  in  the  past.  |<'ui'  in  niciimfy  alnnc,  tlirou^'li  a  i)art 
that  remains,  is  nn-ant  the  individual  wlirilc  wliicli,  by  hein<^ 
meant,  is  so  far  conserved. 

Likewise,  in  nature  there  is  no  foresight  or  expectation.  Again 
what  seems  to  be  this  is  not  really  such.  The  blackberry  bush 
will  put  forth  its  thorns  just  the  same  when  sheltered  in  the  cul- 
tivated garden.  Nature  cannot  foresee  any  specific  event. 
Nature's  foresight  is  habit  or  a  vague  foreboding.  It  is  the 
privilege  of  consciousness  to  predict. 

Since  nature  has  no  memory  or  expectation,  the  Bergsonian 
thesis  that  she  has  no  duration  is  sustained.  What  in  nature 
corresponds  to  the  sense  of  duration  is,  as  we  shall  see,  correla- 
tion. The  sense  of  duration  is  a  purely  p.sychical  complex  made 
up  of  memories,  expectations,  and  comparisons.  A  full  discus- 
sion and  test  of  this  we  reserve  for  another  place.  Yet  this 
truth  does  not  involve  the  non-temporal  character  of  nature.  Not 
duration,  but  growth  and  decay,  are  the  real  temporal  facts,  and 
these,  as  we  have  seen,  are  facts  of  nature. 

Time,  then,  belongs  to  nature  and  to  consciousness;  but  it 
does  not  belong  to  all  that  is.  All  ideal  and  universal  objects,  all 
mathematical  and  logical  entities,  are  eternal  and  non-temporal. 
For  they  do  not  arise  and  perish,  they  are  not  subject  to  change. 
To  be  sure,  our  knowledge  of  them  begins  at  a  certain  date,  grows, 
or  fades  away.  What  we  think  of  them  changes  as  we  change. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  number  system  has  altered  since  the 
Pythagoreans,  and  doubtless  Cantor  and  Russell  and  Dedekind 
have  not  taught  us  all  that  we  are  yet  to  learn.  Yet  the  number 
series  does  not  change,  and  its  elements,  although  ordered  in  a 
way  somewhat  similar  to  the  moments  of  time,  are  not  tempor- 
ally one  before  the  other.  Only  our  consciousness  of  it  is  tem- 
poral ;  as  when,  for  example,  we  count,  becoming  aware  first  of 
one,  then  of  two,  and  so  on.  each  element  being  past  when  the 
next  is  present.     No  analysis  of  the  numbers  themselves  would 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  127 

yield  any  hint  of  change,  or  of  the  distinctions  of  past,  present,  or 
future.  To  be  sure,  they  might  all  be  present  at  a  given  date  to 
the  knowledge  of  a  being  with  a  sufficiently  wide  span  of  atten- 
tion. But  this  would  not  make  them  in  themselves  present  or  give 
them  any  time  relations,  since  they  might  also  be  present  to  an 
earlier  or  later  state  of  consciousness.  The  like  is  true  of  all  con- 
ceptual objects.  But  to  this  subject  we  shall  return  at  the  end 
of  this  monograph. 

3.  The  Properties  op  Time 

So  far  we  have  considered  time  chiefly  as  a  character  of  the 
immediately  known  inner  life.  But,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
time  is  not  merely  subjective.  It  is  a  category  of  nature  as  well. 
We  have  j'et  to  determine  the  universal  properties  of  time,  and 
especially  those  of  that  portion  which  particularly  concerns  us — 
the  past. 

That  time  is  a  series  is  clear  from  the  fact  of  change.  Con- 
sider again  the  burning  of  a  candle.  One  given  length  exists, 
then  another,  then  another.  There  is  a  disappearance  or  an  in- 
flux of  elements,  one  after  the  other.  The  process  of  change 
occurs  in  stages,  each  whole  situation  constituting  an  instant, 
serialized  by  a  transitive,  asymmetrical  relation.  The  process, 
we  have  stated,  is  constituted  by  the  influx  or  efflux  of  elements — 
but  of  what  is  it  a  process  ?  WJiat  changes  ?  Wliatsover  remains 
identical  throughout  various  stages  is  the  thing  which  changes. 
We  speak  of  a  changing  candle  because  there  is  a  visible  identity 
in  the  phenomenon.  In  general,  a  "thing"  changes  when  ele- 
ments are  added  to  or  subtracted  from  a  stable  part.  The  self 
is  an  example.  The  instants  of  a  man 's  biography  are  successive 
psychical  wholes.  His  identity,  that  which  makes  it  possible  to 
speak  of  "him"  at  all,  is  the  mass  of  organic  sensations,  feelings, 
and  purposes,  which  focally  or  marginally  are  with  him  always. 
He  grows  with  the  increment  of  experiences  and  decays  with 
their  disintegration.  The  union  of  identity  with  diversity  in 
change  is,  at  least  in  the  case  of  the  self,  an  experiential  fact. 

In  characterizing  growth  as  an  "addition,"  and  decay  as  a 
"subtraction,"  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  any  particular  view  of 


IL'S        rnivcrsily  of  dalifiiniiit  I'ublicalion.s  in  riiilosopin/.  [^'"'-  2 

till'  kind  <>r  wlmlc  wliicli  ii  tliiti;^'  or  n  si-H'  forms,  least  oi"  all  that 
it  is  a  mere  "sum  dl"  parts."  The  whole  in  (|ue>»tion  may  have 
any  orfjjanization  you  please.  Whatsoever  its  stni<tiiti',  and  what- 
ever its  mode  of  as.siniilat ion,  soniethinj?  will  be  added  to  it  in 
growth,  and  somethinj;  taken  from  it  in  deejay.  This  is  the  most 
general  deseriptioii  (»l'  the  process. 

Bradley's  well-known  view,  that  (;hanf»e  is  a  contradictory  con- 
cept because  identity  and  divei*sity  cannot  be  united,  has  been 
refuted,  we  believe,  by  Russell.  Bradley's  argument,  briefly 
stated,  is  this.  Let  a  given  cross-section  of  the  change-process  of 
anything;  be  a.  Let  a  remain  identical  while  h  is  added.  Then 
that  stajxe  will  be  a  -\-  b.  a,  we  say,  has  changed  into  a  -\-  b.  But 
what  is  a  that  has  remained  identical?  6  cannot  be  simply  juxta- 
posed. Its  adjunction  must  have  effected  some  alteration  in  a. 
Let  us  then  rewrite  a  an  a  -\-  p,  a  being  that  part  which  has  re- 
mained identical,  /8  being  that  novel  part  introduced  into  a  by 
the  change.  But  clearly,  the  same  reasoning  applies  to  a  in  re- 
lation to  13.  Hence  we  must  find  a  new  expression  for  a, — and  so 
on  without  end. 

Bradley  has  here  given  us,  I  think,  a  true  description  of 
our  procedure  in  the  conceptual  dealing  with  pervasive  change. 
Growth  is  no  mere  accretion  from  the  outside.  Change  is  contin- 
uous, and  often  centripetal  into  the  very  core.  All  parts  may 
be  affected,  even  the  most  minute.  We  may  not  be  able  to  ob- 
serve the  change,  yet  it  probably  exists.  Nevertheless — herein  is 
contained  the  answer  to  Bradley — identity  as  well  as  difference  is 
omnipresent  here.  Distinguish  forever  in  the  fashion  illus- 
trated, yet  you  will  always  find  identity.  You  can  no  more  get 
rid  of  it  than  you  can  reach  the  end  of  an  infinite  series.  It  is 
a  fact  that  will  pursue  you.  Of  course,  empirically,  you  will  be 
unable  longer  to  find  diversity;  at  last  the  identity  will  seem  to 
be  pure.  Pure  or  not,  it  will  always  be  there.  And  the  infinite 
progress,  although  practicalh^  inconvenient,  is  logically  harmless. 

Time,  then,  is  a  series.  What  are  its  properties?  (1)  In 
the  first  place,  the  series  is  simple.  If  one  takes  one's  stand 
upon  the  individual  consciousness,  this  is  obvious.  Its  sim- 
plicity is  that  of  our  unified  inner  life.  Change  is  here  incident 
to  a  single  whole.    But  time  is  no  mere  individual  affair,  relative 


1913]         Parker:  31  etaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  129 

to  each  biography.  There  are  many  temporal  processes,  but  only 
one  time.  Time  is  the  series  which  results  from  their  correla- 
tion, and  this  series  is  simple.  What  is  the  principle  of  the 
correlation  ? 

The  principle  is  this — those  stages  of  different  processes  are 
contemporaneous  which  exist,  or  existed,  together.  To  ask  what 
events  are  contemporaneous  with  a  given  existing  event  is  to  ask, 
what  other  events  exist?  The  time  order  of  events  which  are 
under  direct  observation  is  set  up  very  simply.  Those  which  we 
observe  to  exist  constitute  a  "now,"  or  moment.  Coexistence  is 
observable  just  as  the  collineation  of  points  on  a  line.  One  can 
observe,  for  example,  the  coexistence  of  various  bodily  sensations. 
These  events  pass  away.  This  is  also  a  matter  of  observation. 
Other  events  coexist,  displacing  these,  which  are  perhaps  remem- 
bered. The  relation  of  before  and  after  is  then  plainly  estab- 
lished. 

The  co-presence  and  the  succession  of  events  are  thus  matters 
of  observation.  Memory,  apart  from  error,  will  of  course  reflect 
this.  When  events  cannot  be  observed  and  remembered,  their  co- 
presence  and  succession  have  to  be  established  by  analogy  and 
induction.  Only  thus,  for  example,  can  the  time  relations  of 
geological  strata  or  organic  fossils  be  discovered.  Here  we  reason 
on  the  basis  of  coexistences  and  sequences  directly  observable. 

Time  is  nothing  apart  from  processes.  Time  is  simply  the 
abstract  for  their  correlation  and  ordering.  The  elements  of 
individual  series  are  levelled  with  others  through  coexistence ;  the 
order  in  which  they  exist  or  do  not  exist,  their  order  in  arising 
and  perishing,  is  their  time  order. 

Russell  ^  has  objected  to  all  so-called  relativistic  views  of  time 
on  the  ground  that  since  events  form  a  many-one  series — many 
events  being  co-present  at  a  single  time — they  cannot  be  inde- 
pendent of  each  other  and  merely  correlated,  but  must  derive  their 
order  from  the  order  of  an  objective  and  absolute  time,  a  se- 
quence not  deducible  from  them.  Co-presence,  from  this  point  of 
view,  means  co-presence  at  a  given  time,  and  so  implies  the  inde- 
pendent existence  of  time.  Events  are  correlated  by  relation  to 
time — time  is  not  the  abstract  for  their  correlation. 


9  "Is  Position  in  Space  and  Time  Absolute  or  Relative?"    Mind,  July, 
1901. 


]'M\         I'  iiliu  rsH  1/  nf  Cdlifornia  I'lthlicdlions  in  I'liitosopln/.   I  Vol.  2 

Tlicrt'  is  liolli  tnitli  ;iii(l  rrr<)r  in  lliis  view.  It  is  wntiij^  in 
.sn|)|)nsin^  lli.'il  CO  pfcsciicc  implies  iiriic.  As  Uf  luivc  seen,  en- 
cxistciK'i'  is  primary,  "(MJ-prcscncc  at  a  {^ivcii  tirnc!"  pn'sui)pases 
tliat  the  ordrr  of  coexistences  has  already  been  established.  A 
^iveii  moniciit  is  iiofliinf?  bnt  a  level  of  events.  P^vents  are  co- 
prcsenl  simply  becaus*'  fliey  coexist  or  have  eoexisted.  The 
ni()nu'nt"at  which"  is  determinable  solely  with  reference  to  other 
levels  of  coexistence,  either  as  preceding  or  succeedinj:?.  Yet 
Russell  is  right  in  insisting  that  time  is  not  merely  a  matter  of 
point  of  view.  Processes  are  not  independent  of  each  other,  for 
the  principle  of  their  correlation  cannot  be  deduced  from  any 
single  one.  They  are  levelled  through  the  pos.session  of  a  com- 
mon character,  coexistence,  and  serialized  through  objective  rela- 
tions of  succession.  Even  to  possess  a  common  character  is  to 
be  mutually  related,  and  to  be  related  is  to  be  subject  to  an 
objective  law  independent  of  the  point  of  view  of  each.  Hence 
time  is  not  merely  the  ' '  form  of  the  inner  sense, ' '  but  an  objective 
series  of  levels  of  inner  senses.  The  levels  are  the  instants  or  mo- 
ments of  time.  Events  or  wholes,  stages  in  individual  processes, 
are  levelled  with  others  through  the  relation  of  coexistence ;  they 
form  a  single  series  of  levels  because  the  levels  are  one  before 
another  in  a  determinate  order. 

No  difficulty  is  incurred  by  this  view  of  time  as  a  series  of 
levels  of  coexistent  phases  of  experience,  from  the  fact  of  dif- 
ferences in  their  so-called  rates  of  change.  In  order  to  be  con- 
vinced of  this,  one  must  apprehend  the  status  of  duration  as  a 
character  of  objective  time.  I  have  already  asserted  that  in 
nature  there  is  no  sense  of  duration.  This  is,  in  fact,  wholly  sub- 
jective. It  depends  on  attention,  interest,  expectation,  etc.  It 
is  a  feeling  which  accompanies  the  existence  of  elements  in  con- 
sciousness in  relation  to  other  elements.  Objectively,  it  is  wholly 
a  matter  of  correlation.  An  element  endures  or  lasts  long  when 
it  is  coexistent  with  the  emergence  and  passage  of  many  other 
elements.  One  process  is  slower  than  another  when  to  a  few 
stages  of  the  former  there  are  correlated  many  of  the  latter. 
For  example,  to  say  that  the  sun  takes  twelve  times  as  long  to 
complete  its  orbit  as  the  moon  does  hers,  is  simply  to  define  a 
correlation  between  twelve  series  of  positions  defined  by  the  revo- 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  131 

lutions  of  the  moon  and  one  series  of  positions  defined  by  the 
revolution  of  the  sun.  As  Mach  has  suggested,  to  say  that  a 
process  ' '  takes  time, ' '  as,  for  instance,  the  cooling  of  a  body  does, 
is  to  say  that  a  series  of  heat  values  is  dependent  functionally 
on  other  such  series  in  surrounding  bodies  and,  indirectly,  on 
the  position  of  the  sun,  and,  in  fact,  on  every  other  series  of  events 
in  the  universe.  To  have  to  wait  for  an  event,  to  say  of  it  that 
a  certain  length  of  time  will  elapse  before  it  appears,  means  that 
certain  other  phenomena  will  inevitably  intervene  to  conscious- 
ness. Objectively,  time  is  just  the  order  of  the  correlation  of 
facts. 

It  would  be  a  misapprehension  of  the  view  here  defended  to 
suppose  that  it  assumed  the  independence  of  processes.  There 
is  only  one  process,  just  as  there  is  only  one  time.  The  one 
existence-stream  wells  up  inside  the  relatively  isolated  centers 
of  experience,  and  may  be  artificially  divided  into  many  distinct 
natural  eddies.  Yet,  in  truth,  nature  and  consciousness  overlap, 
and  all  nature  is  one  flux.  From  changes  in  one  apparently 
isolated  series  can  be  determined  changes  in  another.  The  so- 
called  spatial  distance  of  one  from  another  is  usually  a  condition 
of  lateness  in  such  dependent  changes,  that  is,  it  involves  that 
if  h  in  center  n  depend  on  a  in  center  m  a  whole  series  of  other 
changes  will  precede  in  n  and  m.  Hence,  since  nature  is  a  whole 
and  there  are  no  independent  processes,  one  might,  as  Mach  has 
shown,  replace  t  in  physical  equations  by  the  path  of  the  sun, 
or  by  any  other  continuous  and  parallel  process,  provided  one 
could  discover  the  law  of  the  concomitant  variations.  And,  of 
course,  this  is  what,  for  all  practical  purposes,  is  done.  The  t 
of  physical  equations,  like  all  other  expressions  for  so-called  abso- 
lute time,  is  just  a  symbol  for  the  correlation  of  events,  usually 
with  the  sun.  For  the  proof  of  this,  one  has  only  to  refer  to  the 
works  of  Mach,  Ostwald,  Poincare,  and  Stallo. 

If  our  view  of  time  be  correct,  Bradley's  supposition  that 
there  might  be  many  time  series  is  futile.  His  appeal  to  the 
varieties  of  personal  experience,  we  have  already  disposed  of. 
Even  if  there  were  experiences  entirely  remote  from  ours,  they 
would  belong  to  the  same  time.  For  they  would  either  exist  or 
not  exist ;  their  comings  and  goings  w^ould  necessarily  align  thom 


ll{2         I'tiirrrsihf  of  ('(ilifoniiti  I'lihlicat ions  in  rinloso])li  ij.   I  V<j1.  2 

with  ours.  Since  cxistfncc  nnd  iinn-cxistciKM-  jirc  «listinctiori.s  ab- 
solute. iill-j)ervasive,  aiid  siii^'le,  so,  a.s  time  is  hasf-d  on  the.sf!  dis- 
tinct ions,  finie  ilseir  is  ahsohite,  all  pervasive,  and  sirif^h?.  Of 
any  remote  exper'ience  we  should  <iid\  need  to  ask.  docs  it  exist, 
und  it  would  thereby  be  levelled  with  wlial(^ver  exp«!rience  of  ours 
existed.  Appeal  to  the  apparent  manifoldnoss  of  the  tim(;  of 
fiction  is  irrelevant.  Keal  time  can  b(;  predicted  only  of  what 
exists  or  has  existed. 

(2)  In  our  own  experieneo,  time  is  sensibly  continuous. '°  Even 
the  phenomena  of  sleep  and  swooning  are  only  apparent  excep- 
tions. For  our  immediate  experience,  these  are  changes,  not  lapses, 
in  consciousness.  Introspection  has  no  means  of  answering  Locke's 
(piestion,  wliether  the  soul  always  thinks.  Left  to  itself  in  its 
backward  searcli,  it  can  find  only  experiences  succeeding  one  an- 
other. One  could  not  experience  a  lapse  in  consciousness;  for 
to  do  so  would  require  that  one  should  experience  one's  owti 
non-existence — the  very  conception  of  which  is  contradictory. 
One  could  not  find  a  lapse  by  mere  memory,  for  to  do  so  would 
require  that  one  should  find  emptiness;  now  to  find  emptiness 
presupposes  that  one  is  already  aware  of  the  being  of  something 
that  has  boundaries  between  which  there  might  be  a  filling;  but 
aside  from  sophistication  gained  elsewhere,  consciousness  is  un- 
aware of  boundaries  in  the  stream  of  its  own  life.  We  come  to 
believe  in  gaps,  first,  from  the  reports  of  our  fellow  men  who 
tell  us  that  time  was,  that  is,  that  their  own  life  was  awake  and 
moving,  while  we  were  still  and  asleep.  Through  correlating 
individual  streams  of  consciousness  we  see  that  to  elements  of 
one  there  correspond  no  elements  of  others.  The  observation  that 
recurrent  physical  processes  have  seemingly  skipped  those  inter- 
mediaries which  we  expect  normally  to  occur,  confirms  our  belief. 
We  prefer  to  regard  our  own  lives  as  discontinuous  rather  than 
nature's,  because  we  have  learned  to  think  of  her  as  having  an 
existence  and  habit  independent,  and  superior  to  our  own.  Thus 
even  if  there  are  gaps  in  the  indi\ndual  experience — empty  spaces 
in  the  lives  of  each — time  is  not  thereby  rendered  discontinuous. 
For  if,  correlated  with  these,  there  exists  any  experience  of  other 


i>^  See  Ostwald.  Xaturphilosophie,  Fiinfte  Yorlesung,  on  which  our  account 
is  largely  dependent. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  133 

men  or  of  nature  which  is  continuous,  time  is  continuous  also; 
for  time  is  just  the  order  of  whatever  experiences  there  happen 
to  have  been.  Hence  there  can  be  time  between  phases  of  indi- 
vidual experience,  but  "no  time  between  time."  Even  if  the 
universe  were  to  fall  asleep  and  then  waken,  there  would  be  no 
lapse  of  time :  for  there  is  no  time  where  there  is  no  existence ; 
the  waking  would  follow  immediately  on  the  sleep ;  it  would  be 
merely  another  experience,  contiguous  with  the  world's  last 
dream. 

Within  our  individual  conscious  experience  itself  there  are 
no  reasons  for  regarding  time  as  continuous  in  the  mathematical 
sense.  We  certainly  cannot  discover  by  introspection  an  in- 
finity of  elements.  And  such  an  infinity  would  not  make  com- 
pletely intelligible  what  we  mean  by  the  felt  continuity  of  con- 
sciousness. Time,  in  the  inner  life,  is  continuous  as  sensible 
space  is.  Our  conviction  that  it  is  continuous  in  the  mathematical 
sense  is  due  to  our  measurement  of  it  by  physical  processes.  We 
asvsume  that  physical  processes  are  mathematically  continuous, 
because  we  assume  that  space  over  which  motion  proceeds  is 
continuous.  But  no  one,  of  course,  has  ever  observed  continuity 
either  in  space  or  in  motion.  The  assumption  of  continuity  helps 
us  to  predict ;  it  works  well  in  our  science,  hence  our  belief. 
The  sensible  continuity  of  time  involves  at  least  connexity,  ab- 
sence of  breaks;  that  is,  that  between  any  two  parts  of  the  series, 
if  there  is  anything,  it  is  always  part  of  the  series,  and,  further, 
that  no  discrete  elements  can  be  found.  Those  who  regard  time 
as  discontinuous  are  idealists  who  base  their  conviction  on  the  dis- 
continuity of  the  pulses  of  attention.  But  they  neglect  the  entire 
sphere  of  inattention.  When  this  is  taken  into  view,  consciousness 
has  the  continuity  described — it  has  no  breaks,  and,  during  wak- 
ing at  least,  "fills"  time. 

In  the  subtle  little  book,  Les  donnees  immSdiates  de  la  con- 
science, the  serial  view  of  time  has  received  an  acute  critique  at 
the  hands  of  Bergson.  The  argument  is,  we  think,  fatal  to  any 
conception  of  time  as  a  punctual  series,  in  which  any  element 
which  occupies  a  given  position  is  necessarily  excluded  from  every 
other.  What  Bergson  has  called  la  penetration  mutuelle  des 
elements,  the  existence  of  elements  in  both  past  and  present,  is, 


i:{4         (hiirt  rsitji  of  (Uilifnrnin  I'lihlii-nli'ms  i)i  fhilosoph}/.   I  V'ol.  2 

as  \\v  liavc  seen,  ai)  in(liit)ilalilr  fad  of  memory,  and  quite  ir- 
rccoiicilahlc  with  llic  piiiichial  iiiia^'c  Yet,  hocan.s(,'  time  i.s  not 
n  piiiii'lual  scries,  if  is  not  tliereforc  no  scries  at  all.  There  can 
!)(■  tin  (|iicsti<iii  as  fit  I  lie  being  of  stages  in  all  change,  stages  which 
do  form  a  series  of  some  kind.  Consider  only  the  growth  of  an 
organism,  motion,  our  familiar  burning  candle,  the  flight  of  a 
man's  Ihouglit.s.  The  stages  hero  are  not  mere  conceptual  sec- 
tions in  a  homogeneous  unit:  tlicy  are  real;  that  is,  they  corres- 
pond to  something  actual — the  successive  emergence  and  decay 
of  elements.  Justice  is  not  done  to  this  a^spect  of  time  in  Berg- 
son's  treatment.  Yet  it  is  quite  as  fundamental  as  that  upon 
which  he  insists — the  conservation  of  the  past.  Both  aspects  are 
essential  to  a  complete  view. 

There  are  other  illustrations  of  series  besides  that  of  the 
points  on  a  line.  There  is  a  very  simple  spatial  one,  which  illus- 
trates many  features  of  the  time  series.  Consider  a  series  of 
overlapping  areas  of  various  sizes.  Here  parts  of  space  exist 
identically  in  various  areas.  Yet  the  latter  may  be  arranged  in 
a  continuous  series.  Each  position,  that  is,  each  whole  area,  is 
unique,  but  the  parts  of  areas  are  not  all  so;  some  will  run 
through  the  entire  series.  The  positions  will  be  distinguished  by 
possessing  or  not  possessing  elements  which  do  not  or  do  belong 
to  the  others.  The  properties  of  time  are  parallel.  The  "events" 
are  unique,  that  is,  the  whole  stages  or  cross-sections  of  a  process. 
But  the  elements  of  these  are  not  unique,  they  are  repeated  in 
various  wholes,  exist  at  various  ' '  times. ' '  The  wholes  are  always 
different,  but  the  elements  may  not  be  unique.  Take  the  self  as 
an  illustration.  It  begins  its  career  as  a  definite  whole  of  ele- 
ments. Growth  consists  in  the  continual  modification  of  this 
through  the  loss  of  some  elements  and  the  gain  of  others.  Self- 
identity  may  be  more  or  less.  After  maturity,  for  example,  it  is 
probably  greater  than  before  and  after  puberty;  yet  there  is 
always  some  of  it.  Thus  the  organic  sensations  are  largely  iden- 
tical "over-night,"  and  the  thoughts  of  the  morrow  may  be  the 
same  as  those  of  yesterday. 

Similar  facts  are  patent  when  we  consider  not  only  the  indi- 
vidual but  the  social  temporal  process.  It  is  the  totality  of  the 
material  assimilated  by  each  generation  which  is  different.     Yet 


1913]         Parker :  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  135 

the  social  heritage  is  an  accumulation — there  is  a  fund  of  iden- 
tity around  which  accretions  form.  But  the  whole  is  not  con- 
served. Each  invention  by  displacing  other  things,  either  in  use 
or  interest,  destroys  something.  The  temporal  process  is  conser- 
vative, constructive,  and  destructive. 

Our  conception  of  time  removes  a  difficulty  involved  in  our 
epistemology.  The  problem  was,  If  memory  and,  to  a  certain 
extent,  report  actually  present  us  with  the  past,  how  can  that 
which  they  present  exist  at  two  times  ?  Our  view  shows  how  we 
can  "get  the  past  over  again,"  not,  to  be  sure,  the  complete 
past,  but  part  of  it.  It  shows  that  present  and  past  are  not 
wholly  incompatible.  Hence,  even  if  ideally  adequate  knowledge 
involving  reinstatement  of  its  total  object  be  here  impossible, 
knowledge  is  still  possible. 

Here  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  interdependence  of 
ontology  and  epistemology.  The  conception  of  time  as  a  linear 
spatial  series  plainly  involves  a  purely  representative  theory  of 
knowledge  of  the  past.  Each  mental  state  must  be  unique  and 
hence  can  know  only  through  being  similar  to  the  past.  This  is 
the  view  of  time  accepted  by  the  ordinary  scientific  psychology. 
We  now  know  that  it  is  not  at  all  inevitable  and  that  it  is  con- 
tradicted by  the  facts  of  self-identity  and  memory. 

It  would  be  objected  to  our  view,  that  an  element  cannot  exist 
at  two  times,  for  in  order  to  do  so  it  would  have  to  maintain  its 
identity  despite  its  entrance  into  new  relationships.  And,  so  it 
is  claimed,  a  thing  cannot  be  identical  in  a  new  context.  This 
objection  rests  upon  the  view  of  relations  as  internal.  We  have 
already  replied  to  it.  Partial  identity  despite  change  of  relation- 
ships is  a  fact  of  immediate  experience.  I  am  partly  the  same 
as  man  and  as  child,  before  and  after  entering  into  civic  relation- 
ships. We  repeat,  no  logic  can  invalidate  the  truth  of  such  ex- 
periences. For  a  logical  defense  of  the  external  view  of  relations 
and  critique  of  the  internal,  I  must  again  refer  to  Russell. 

(3)  That  time  has  direction,  is  deducible  from  the  universal 
character  of  conscious  experience,  whose  form  it  is.  We  have 
already  laid  stress  on  the  appreciable  aspects  of  this :  the  sense 
of  novelty,  of  the  breaking  in  of  new  contents  upon  the  self  and 
the  passing  of  the  old,  of  the  direction  of  the  will,  which  estab- 


l:{()         (hiirrrsihf  of  Califitrnid  f'uhlications  in  I'liilosophif.  I  Vol.  2 

lislirs  tlic  Icli'dln^nc'il  ur-fliT.  '!'(»  Ilidsc  will)  l)('lii'Vf  in  tho  eternal 
existcricc  of  the  whole  i>\'  tiriif,  1  iiin'-scn.s(;  is,  of  course',  wliolly 
of  nil  appreciable  and  subjective  character.  But  to  tlioso  who 
believe  tliat  only  a  singlf-  pnisent  exists,  the  time-direction  is 
an  irreducible  character  of  the  irreducible  fact  of  becomint^.  It 
rests  (tn  the  asymmetry  of  the  relations  before  and  after  of  be- 
coming::. The  fact  of  cominf^  into  existence  and  passinf?  out  of 
existence  in  an  order  is  the  fact  of  time-direction. 

(4)  The  most  impressive,  emotionally,  of  all  the  characters  of 
time,  is  perhai)s  that  of  its  lack  of  double  points.  No  moment 
is  at  once  past  and  future  to  any  other.  Each  divides  the  others 
into  two  mutually  exclusive  classes,  the  past  and  the  future. 
Time  does  not  at  ;uiy  point  turn  back  on  its  course.  Time  is 
irreversible,  the  past  is  irrevocable.  In  memory  we  may  call 
back  some  of  the  past,  but  the  complete  past  returns  not  again. 
Hence  the  sadness  of  the  time  process. 

INIaeh  and  Ostwald  derive  our  belief  in  the  irreversibility  of 
time  from  such  processes  as  wearing  out,  decay,  growing  old, 
the  dissipation  of  heat,  and  so  on.  There  are  no  truly  reversible 
or  recurrent  processes  in  nature.  Cyclical  processes  and  so-called 
recurrent  processes  are  only  apparently  such.  The  coexistence 
of  the  unlike  phases  of  other  such  processes  and  of  irreversible 
processes  renders  these  processes  also,  because  of  the  unity  of 
nature,  really  non-recurrent.  But  our  belief  is.  I  think,  more 
deeply  and  inwardly  grounded.  Time  order,  we  have  seen,  is 
identical  with  the  order  of  co-present  experiences.  And  it  is 
from  the  law  of  our  inner  life  that  we  feel  assured  that  the  past 
cannot  wholly  recur.  For  the  past  to  become  our  future  we 
should  have  to  be  boys  again,  we  with  our  sophistication  and 
sober  purposes  should  have  to  be  innocent  and  playful.  And  this, 
of  course,  could  not  be.  "We  might  know  the  past  boy  that  we 
were,  just  as  we  know  another  boy  now.  but  we  could  not  he  that 
boy.  any  more  than  we  can  be  this  boy.  For  to  be  a  boy  depends 
on  having  just  those  limitations  which  would  be  destroyed  if  our 
being  should  flow  together  with  his.  Knowledge  and  ignorance 
cannot  coexist.  One  cannot  be  exactly  what  one  is  and  some- 
thing else  besides. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  137 

The  continuity  of  the  change-process  and  the  identity  of  the 
self  through  change  thus  prevent  any  sudden  recurrence  of  the 
past.  But  might  not  the  reinstatement  of  the  past  be  gradual? 
Only  an  immediate  following  of  the  past  moment  upon  a  present 
one  is  rendered  impossible  through  continuity.  Suppose  the  lost 
elements  gradual^  to  be  replaced  and  the  new  ones  as  gradually 
to  fall  away,  might  not,  after  sufficient  time,  the  old  actually 
recur,  not  in  my  life  or  yours,  but  in  that  of  our  children  ?  Might 
not  various  areas  of  our  illustration  be  repeated,  not  once  only, 
but  often,  in  the  course  of  time 's  infinity  ?  Like  the  arts,  civiliza- 
tions might  be  lost  and  found  many  times.  The  ancient  myths 
of  the  cyclical  course  of  the  world,  of  transmigration  and  re- 
incarnation, would  be  confirmed.  There  would  be  a  sort  of  univer- 
sal alternation  of  generations.  The  same  roles  in  the  drama  of  the 
world  would  be  impersonated  many  times  by  different  actors. 
"Why  is  the  familiar  image  of  time  a  straight  line  rather  than  a 
cubic  ? 

Apart  from  any  a  priori  ground  for  the  belief  in  the  unique- 
ness of  the  moments  or  stages  of  the  time-process,  our  conviction 
of  it  rests  on  a  generalization  supported  by  the  entire  range  of 
our  experience.  The  actual  laws  of  the  world  speak  universally 
in  its  favor.  Nowhere,  in  either  space  or  time,  do  we  meet  with 
the  exact  similarity  of  any  demonstrable  whole.  Parts  of  a  whole 
will  be  found  alike,  but  invariably  others  will  differ.  Owing  to 
the  well-grounded  inference  of  the  interaction  of  all  existents, 
in  order  for  any  considerable  part  of  a  contemporaneous  w^orld 
to  be  exactly  like  any  part  of  a  preceding  epoch,  two  entire  cross- 
sections  of  time  would  have  to  be  alike.  The  improbability  of 
this  is  enormous. 

Yet,  besides  these  empirical  grounds,  there  is  an  a  priori  one 
for  the  uniqueness  of  moments.  By  an  a  priori  ground  I  mean 
one  based  upon  the  nature  of  experience  as  such.  Experience 
is  living,  organic ;  its  changes  are  pervasive  and  cumulative ;  and 
although  it  may  decline,  and  fall  back  to  the  general  character  of 
a  preceding  stage,  the  new  stage  will  nevertheless  bear  traces  of 
the  intervening  development  which  will  differentiate  it  from  the 
earlier  similar  one.     A  difference  in  position  in  the  temporal 


i:5S        University  of  (Jalifoniia  I'lihlications  in  Philosophy.  [Vol.  2 

ficries  n«'<'('s.siliitc.s  ;i  (lillrfcncc  in  cli.ir.ictrr,  just  hccauHo  each  (ivt-r- 
lics  tlir  wlidlr  r.itif^'r  of  the  prcccdint^.  To  suppose  that  two 
iiKUiiciils  art'  cxacUy  nWkr.  except  lor  position,  involves  a  coritra- 
clictioii ;  for  tlieir  character  depends  on  their  position. 

The  impossihilit y  of  the  retention  of  the  complete  past  in  the 
present,  or  the  recnrronce  of  any  past  moment  as  a  new  future, 
prevents  in  any  Tnetaphysically  sympathetic  heart  full  feeling  for 
the  optimism  of  i)ro}:^ress.  We  can  progress  only  through  destroy- 
iniT.  'riic  new  is  perhaps  better  than  the  old.  Still  the  old  was 
good  and  its  i)ure  and  integral  value  is  irrevocably  lost. 

(5)  Last,  we  have  a  deep-seated  conviction  that  the  past 
hud  no  beginning,  and  that  the  future  will  have  no  end.  The 
universality  of  this  belief  is  rather  weakened  by  the  prevalence 
of  creation  stories.  Yet  it  seems  doubtful  if  any  beginning  of 
time  was  thought  of  by  thase  myth-makers.  After  all,  the  gods 
or  chaos  existed  previously. 

Philosophers  have  attempted  to  disprove  the  possibility  of  a 
first  moment  of  time.  To  suppose  a  first  moment,  it  is  said,  is 
to  suppose  a  time  when  time  was  not.  Yet  this  argument  is 
obviously  sophistical,  for  it  really  presupposes  the  infinity  of 
time,  which  is  tlie  point  in  dispute.  The  hypothesis  was  not  that 
of  a  beginning  of  time  in  time,  but  of  a  beginning  of  time  at  all. 
By  the  hypothesis  there  was  nothing  before  the  first  moment ; 
indeed,  it  is  illegitimate  to  speak  of  before  at  all  except  after  the 
first  moment.  This  reasoning  becomes  more  cogent  if  we  bear  in 
mind  that  apart  from  events  in  time,  that  is,  apart  from  experi- 
ence, there  is  no  time.  Individual  subjective  time  certainly  has 
a  beginning  at  or  near  conception,  and  an  end  at  death. 

The  arguments  against  an  infinite  past  are  equally  falla- 
cious. The  chief  of  these  is  Kant's,  contained  in  the  First  Antin- 
omy. To  suppose  an  infinite  past  is  to  suppose  that  at  each 
moment  an  infinite  time  had  elapsed ;  but  this  would  mean  that 
an  infinite  series  had  been  completed.  "But  the  infinity  of  a 
series  consists  in  this,  that  it  can  never  be  completed  by  a  suc- 
cessive synthesis."  Lotze  has  given  a  correct  answer  to  this 
argument:  "It  is  not  with  itself  that  the  endlessness  of  time  is 
in  contradiction,  but  only  with  our  effort  to  include  its  infinite 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  139 

progress  in  a  finite  one  of  the  same  kind."^^  We,  to  be  sure,  can- 
not count  an  infinite  series,  we  cannot  embrace  the  whole  in  any- 
successive  synthesis,  but  this  does  not  prove  that  an  infinite  does 
not  exist.  And  there  is  nothing  contradictory  in  supposing  that 
at  each  moment  an  infinite  series  has  preceded.  The  possibility 
of  a  series  with  a  last  but  no  first  member  is  demonstrated  by  the 
example  of  the  series  of  negative  whole  numbers. 

Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit  is  the  ancient  and  sufficient  reason  against 
the  supposition  of  a  first  moment.  "We  know  of  no  origination 
which  is  not  an  outgrowth,  the  coming  to  be  of  which  was  deter- 
mined by  an  existent.  It  was  thus  that  our  own  experience  was 
born,  it  is  thus  that  natural  products  are  made.  For  a  similar 
reason,  the  universe  can  have  no  end.  The  disintegration  of  an 
existent  is  ultimately  due  to  the  onslaught  of  another,  it  is  a 
sequence  of  conflict,  out  of  which  one  element  always  rises  a  victor. 
Destruction  is  relative  to  growth  or  persistence.  We  have  only 
to  think  of  the  death  of  the  organism,  undoubtedly  due  to  the 
attack  of  exterior  forces  which  feed  on  its  destruction.  It  is 
unthinkable  that  any  simple  element  should,  in  itself,  perish. 
A  whole  can  perish  only  through  the  conflict  of  its  own  elements 
or  a  conflict  with  external  forces.  But  in  each  case  some  elements 
are  rendered  more  stable  in  existence :  in  the  former,  certain  of 
its  own ;  in  the  latter,  part  of  its  environment.  The  inner  decay 
of  the  simple  and  the  harmonious  is  impossible.  Suicide  is  no 
exception.  Hence  the  universe  can  never  come  to  an  end.  For 
of  external  enemies  there  are  none,  and  inner  disruption  of  some 
of  its  parts  is  relative  to  the  growth  of  the  rest.  Since  existence 
has  been  always,  time  also  has  been  always,  and  since  existence 
shall  be  always,  so  shall  time. 


11  Lotze,  Metaphysics,  Bosanqnet 's  translation,  p.  245,  octavo  edition. 


•}0        r iiinrsihi  of  ('itlifurinn  I'lihliral Ifnis  in  I'hiloaophy.  [Vol.2 


(IIAI'TKK    IV 

TIIM  .MI-rrAI'llVSICAL  STATUS  UF  THE  PAST 

In  our  iiccoiint  oF  time  \\v  liave  assumod  tho  common-scnsf? 
view  tliat  only  the  "present"  exists.  For  that  view,  time  is  not 
an  existent  whole  Only  it  part  exists.  The  distinction  between 
past  and  present  is  both  relative  and  absolute :  relative,  since 
from  the  point  of  view  of  one  moment  all  preceding  moments  are 
past ;  absolute,  since  one  and  only  one  of  such  points  of  view 
exists,  or  is  present  in  the  jiregnant  sense  of  the  term. 

^letaphysics  cannot  take  the  non-existence  of  the  past  for 
granted.  Perhaps  the  belief  of  common-sense  is  a  prejudice. 
May  not  the  distinction  between  past  and  present  be  purely 
relative?  In  other  words,  may  not  the  present,  or  "now,"  be  a 
logical  variable,  applicable  to  any  moment  and  so  to  all  moments, 
rather  than  to  one  only,  and  that  a  changing  one?  "We  have 
tacitly  assumed  that  becoming  and  disintegration  are  ultimate 
facts;  perhaps  they  are  illusions,  perhaps  the  universe  is  time- 
lessly  or  time-inclusively  actual. 

In  recent  times  the  view  of  common-sense  has  been  impugned 
as  a  piece  of  popular  and  false  metaphysics,  and  the  whole  time 
series  regarded  as  actual.  The  distinction  between  past  and 
future  is  wholly  relative,  it  is  declared.  From  the  point  of  \'iew 
of  each  moment  the  others  are  either  past  or  future,  but  no  one 
point  of  view  is  truer  than  another.  The  experiences  of  passing 
away  and  of  becoming  are  illusions.  The  past  and  future  are 
inaccessible,  not  non-existent.  Wlien  I  say,  my  past  is  gone,  my 
old  self  is  dead,  I  really  mean.  I  am  not  that  self,  that  self  is 
another  self.  In  fact,  "all  that  is  pa.st,  all  histories,  actions,  and 
states  of  our  earlier  time"  are,  not  to  be  sure  now,  but  then, 
"still  existing  and  happening,"  "and  every  individual  being  Sn 
has  alongside  of  itself  as  many  doubles.  S^.  So,  S3,  completing 
themselves  one  after  another,  as  it  counts  various  moments  in 
the  existence  which  it  seems  to  have  lived  through,"*^-  and,  so  we 


12  Lotze,  Metaphysics,  Bosanquet's  translation,  p.  258. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  141 

ought  to  add,  as  many  other  such  doubles  as  it  shall  live  through, 
to  and  including  the  one  that  dies.  Thus  there  is  no  real  loss 
or  gain  in  the  universe;  the  experiences  of  loss  and  gain  are 
experiences,  the  one  of  the  relative  inaccessibility  of  various 
moments  with  regard  to  one  another,  the  other  of  the  discovery 
of  new  contents.  Birth  to  the  one  to  whom  it  occurs  is  an  experi- 
ence, a  character  of  the  universe  which  simply  is,  eternally ;  to 
the  onlooker  it  is  another  experience,  also  eternally  posited; 
death  means  simply  the  boundary  of  an  eternal  series  of 
experiences  which  have  a  common  character  or  bear  certain 
teleological  relations  to  one  another,  and  possibly  an  experience 
of  rebirth  and  memory  of  the  preceding  experiences  on  the  part 
of  another  moment  in  the  "future  life,"  also  eternally  actual. 
Thus  the  distinctions  of  past  and  future  are,  at  bottom,  equiva- 
lent to  the  distinction  between  existent  pulses  of  consciousness 
which  eternally  undergo  certain  experiences  with  regard  to  one 
another.  Nothing  really  moves  or  happens,  but  things  feel  as  if 
they  were  moving  or  happening. 

This  theory  is  often  regarded  as  having  a  decided  emotional 
advantage  over  the  common-sense  view.  But  if  we  realize  just 
what  the  theory  implies,  our  judgment  on  this  question  will 
depend  on  whether  we  are  optimistic  or  not.  For  not  only 
"forever  shalt  thou  love  and  she  be  fair"  and  all  the  glories  of 
ancient  Greece  and  Rome  be  conserved  in  the  eternal,  but  also 
forever  shalt  thou  be  rejected,  and  all  the  crime  and  misery  of 
the  darkest  eras  be  enacted  and  bemoaned.  In  this  metaphysical 
city  of  the  dead,  all  evils  as  well  as  all  values  are  conserved. 

Essential  to  the  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  the  question 
is  the  realization  that  we  are  not  here  concerned  with  any  Brad- 
leian  existence  of  the  past,  in  a  transmuted  form,  within  an  abso- 
lute and  eternal  experience,  nor  with  its  existence  in  an  eternal 
and  time-inclusive  specious  present,  such  as  is  described  by  Pro- 
fessor Royce.  Our  past  experiences  transmuted,  or  even  simply  in- 
cluded within  the  absolute,  would  not  be  those  experiences  as  we 
lived  them.  An  experience  which  included  all  other  experiences 
would  be  another  than  they.  Our  inquiry  is  whether,  in  all  their 
limitation,  particularity,  and  exclusiveness,  the  past  moments  of 
experience  exist.     Our  question  is:  Does  the  infant's  cry  in  the 


M'J         fhiirrrsihj  i>f  ('(ilifnniid  I'lihliintiotu  in  I'hilosoph]!.  (Vol.  2 

nif^lif  rxist  ill  all  ils  t'cif  distress  ami  i^'intrarMtc ? — not,  Docs  it 
exist  as  known  or  scon  hy  llic  Nyriii)ath«;tic  yet  satisfied  absolute? 
Tli(>  cxistoncc  of  \\\v  one  is  dilTcrciit  from  the  existence  of  the 
other,  and  it  is  only  with  the  former  that  we  are  here  concerned. 

The  distinelidn  we  an*  niakinj,'  is  no  false  abstraction  of  the 
"mere  understaiidin;.?. "  Tt  is  one  whieh  we  have  to  make  in 
order  to  be  true  to  the  nature  of  consciousness  and  to  avoid  con- 
tradiction. It  is  impossible  to  hold  that  the  finite  consciou.sness 
is  a  part  of  the  eternal  moment.  For  to  the  finite  consciousness  a 
certain  limited  rej^ion  of  fact  (A)  is  known;  to  the  absolute  con- 
sciousness there  is  known  all  that  the  finite  consciousness  knows 
and  everything  else  (A  +  B).  lUit  it  is  impossible  to  know  the 
whole  and  only  a  part.  Knowledge  and  mere  ignorance  cannot 
be  united.  In  vain  does  one  appeal  to  the  transitional  experi- 
ences of  growing  in  knowledge,  or  to  the  double  consciousness 
apparently  present  in  remorse  and  correction  of  error.  For  here, 
although,  to  be  sure,  we  have  a  sort  of  combination  of  ignorance 
and  knowledge,  of  sin  and  virtue,  we  do  not  have  a  union  of 
mere  ignorance  and  knowledge,  mere  sin  and  virtue.  Unless  the 
world  realizes  a  contradiction,  mere  ignorance  and  knowledge  are 
never  combined.  I  cannot  commit  a  fault,  believing  it  to  be  a 
good  deed  and  doubting  not  of  the  truth  of  my  conviction — a 
common  experience — and  also  doubt.  Yet  just  this  sort  of  con- 
tradiction, we  are  told,  the  absolute  realizes.  In  vain  also  would 
one  remind  us  that  everj^  false  proposition  we  hold  implies  all 
true  and  false  propositions,  and  thence  reason  that  our  ignorance 
implies  a  complete  knowledge.  For  the  reasoning  is  not  cogent, 
since  it  argues  from  the  implication  of  propositions  to  the  im- 
plication of  the  knowledge  of  propositions;  and  secondly,  if 
cogent,  it  would  not  prove  the  point  in  question.  For  it  assumes, 
what  cannot  be  proved,  that  complete  knowledge  would  include  all 
partial  knowledg:e ;  where  the  inference  rests  on  the  ambiguity  of 
the  term  knowledge,  which  means  either  the  object  known  or  the 
knowing  of  it.  Complete  knowing  involves  knowing  the  part ;  it 
does  not  necessarily  involve  being  the  knowing  of  only  that  part. 

The  same  contradiction  appears  in  the  use  of  the  specious 
present  to  illustrate  the  possibility  of  this  view.  Take  the  favorite 
instance  of  the  melody.      It  is  reasoned  that  because  we  can 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  143 

grasp  many  notes  at  once,  the  absolute  can  include  the  whole  of 
time  at  once,  that  is,  the  total  series  of  experiences.  But  it  is 
one  thing  to  know  at  once  an  infinite  series  of  objects — which,  as 
Professor  Royce  has  proved  in  his  Supplementary  Essays,  is  pos- 
sible— and  quite  another  thing  to  include  an  infinite  series  of 
experiences.  For,  to  keep  the  illustration,  to  be  a  finite  knower 
means  to  know  only  one  note.  Now  the  absolute  cannot  know 
only  one  note  and  also  know  all.  1,  2,  3,  4,  ,  .  .,  I  might  know 
together,  but  I  could  not  do  this  and  also  know  only  1,  2.  An 
omniscient  consciousness  might,  besides,  exist  throughout  time, 
and  at  each  moment  know  the  whole  time  series,  but  it  would 
not  thereby,  and  could  not,  he  the  whole  series  of  conscious  beings 
which  fill  time. 

The  problem  before  us  is  also  not  that  of  the  existence  of  the 
past  in  the  present  in  the  way  we  have  shown  to  be  actual.  As  we 
have  seen,  certain  elements  are  stable,  persisting  through  every 
moment.  In  memory,  and  to  a  diminished  extent  in  ''report," 
still  more  of  the  past  is  conserved.  Such  parts  of  the  past  are 
always  present.  Now,  to  use  the  language  of  Hegel,  all  this 
''Aufbewahrung"  and  "Erinnerung"  of  the  past  in  the  present 
is  unquestioned,  and  remote  from  our  problem.  We  ask,  does 
the  whole  past  exist,  does  every  moment,  as  we  have  defined  it, 
exist?  In  terms  of  our  illustration,  do  all  the  areas  which  rep- 
resent the  time  series  exist  as  they  do  on  our  paper,  or  does  only 
one  ?  Does  the  whole  past  life  of  you  and  me,  does  the  whole  of 
history,  exist?  Our  question  is  not  whether  the  past  in  some 
sense  or  other  exists  now,  but  whether  it  exists  as  it  did  exist 
at  all.  Is  Washington,  not  now,  hut  then,  still  crossing  the 
Delaware? 

How  shall  we  answer  this  question?  Plainly  we  can  do  so 
only  if  we  answer  the  broader  question.  How  do  we  know  whether 
anything  exists  or  does  not  exist  ?  Let  us  ask  this  question  about 
certain  well-known  objects.  First,  how  do  we  know  that  we 
ourselves  exist? 

We  know  this  because  we  have  an  idea  of  ourselves  and 
because  this  idea  is  filled  out  in  our  immediate  experience  of 
ourselves.  In  one  whole  of  experience  we  are  both  the  idea  of 
ourselves  and  ourselves  also.      We  ourselves  are  taken  ui)  into 


1  1 1        Univvrsit]!  of  ('alifiir)iin  /'uhlinations  in  Philosophy,  f  Vol.  2 

tlir  i(ic;i.  Ill  ;iiiy  conscidiis  riioiiifiit,  wi-  rxpcrifiifc  tin-  t"iilfillin<'iit 
(if  the  iiit'Miiin^'-  of  lliis  i<icii.  'I'liis  vcrilifjif ion  of  our  own  (-xist- 
encc  (Iocs  not,  liowcvcr,  dilTcr  in  kind  from  any  othf-r  vcrificjition. 
No  more  llum  when  uc  verify  llw  hi'int,'  of  mathematical  ideas 
by  ohliiitiiii^,'  .III  I'Xix'r'ience  of  clear  a/id  ade(|uate  fulfillment  of 
meaninf^  do  we  compare  our  id(*as  with  our  objects  by  getting 
outside  of  our  ideas.  There  is  no  tliird  consciousness  which  looks 
on  and  compai-cs  our  idea  of  activity  or  existence  with  its  object 
and  sees  tli;it  they  a^n-cc.  Tlu;  experience  is  single,  an  experience 
of  the  fulfillment  of  an  idea — a  perfectly  definite  and  unique 
experience.  Of  course  by  a  reflective  act  we  may  know  both  our 
idea  of  ourselves  and  the  object  of  that  idea,  and  make  judgment 
that  the  latter  was  fulfilled  in  the  former.  But,  as  a  rule,  this 
judgment  is  after  the  fact.  Thus  we  Imow  our  own  exi.stence 
directly,  by  getting  a  vivid  and  full  idea  of  the  self  in  the  self. 
The  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  my  fellow  is  just  as  direct 
as  that  of  my  own  self.  I  know  that  my  fellow  is  active  or  exists, 
by  possessing  vivid  and  full  ideas  of  other-experience.  My 
knowledge  of  him  is  no  inference  from  his  bodily  states.  It  is  as 
direct  as  any  knowledge  can  be.  I  possess  ideas  which  themselves 
speak,  and  laugh,  and  think,  but  it  is  not  I  who  talk  and  smile 
and  reason  to  myself,  but  my  friend;  these  ideas,  although  they 
are  mine,  are  cognitive  ideas.  They  announce  the  being  of 
another;  they  refer  to,  they  mean,  that  other's  presence. 
Separated  though  we  are  from  each  other's  being,  we  are  not 
therefore  alone,  for  our  ideas  are  not  all  mere  pictures  which 
simply  come  and  go,  outwardly  resembling  other  objects  of  which 
we  know  nothing ;  some  of  these  ideas  not  only  are  and  resemble ; 
they  mean,  they  know.  Of  course  our  ideas  of  our  fellow's 
thoughts  are  always  accompanied  by  ideas  of  sound  or  motion. 
But  our  own  thinking  likewise  always  has  a  sensuous  medium  and 
setting,  yet  we  do  not  infer  our  thinking  from  these  accompani- 
ments. Just  so  our  ideas  of  our  fellow  s  thoughts  are  as  directly 
cognitive  as  our  ideas  of  his  movements.  If  we  cannot  know  a 
man's  thoughts  directly,  how  can  we  know  his  movements?  If 
the  one  are  pictures  without  a  cognitive  function,  why  are  not 
the  others?  Thus  we  know  the  existence  of  our  fellow  by  pos- 
sessing vivid  ideas  which  announce  his  being. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knouiedge.  145 

Now,  if  applied  to  the  past,  this  test  of  existence  is  not  suc- 
cessful. I  have,  for  example,  an  idea  of  my  past  self.  This  idea 
of  course  exists,  and  it  contains  elements  of  that  past  self  to 
which  it  refers.  Yet  it  means  a  whole,  of  which  it  is  itself  but 
the  smallest  fragment.  And  that  meaning  cannot  be  fulfilled. 
However  vivid  and  accurate  my  memory,  it  never  contains  the 
whole  of  life  that  it  means.  Our  memory  announces  the  subject 
matter  of  our  childhood's  sorrow;  it  tells  the  reasons,  and  per- 
chance we  judge  them  right;  but  it  does  not  weep  to  us.  This 
which  is  true  of  our  own  past,  of  which  we  possess  more  vivid 
ideas  than  of  aught  else,  is  a  fortiori  true  of  all  other  past  objects. 

Yet,  is  failure  to  find  an  object  real  proof  of  its  non-existence? 
If  I  look  in  a  room  for  something  and  do  not  discover  it  there, 
may  the  fact  not  be  that  it  is  elsewhere?  In  order  to  prove  that 
I  searched  for  a  non-existent  phantom,  I  must  have  reason  to 
believe  it  there  or  nowhere;  which  belief  must  rest  on  grounds 
of  a  different  character  from  mere  inability  to  discover  it  some- 
where. A  negative  particular,  to  be  demonstrative,  requires  sup- 
port from  a  universal.  Again  I  watch  the  candle  burn  down. 
Suddenly  it  goes  out.  Do  I  rightly  believe  that  the  light  no 
longer  exists,  because  I  cannot  recover  the  sensation?  It  has 
gone  from  my  mind,  to  be  sure ;  and  in  all  its  fullness  I  cannot 
recover  it.  But  what  warrants  the  universal  disjunction — a 
sensation  must  be  in  the  mind  or  nowhere — which  forms  the 
major  premise  of  my  conclusion?  Is  inability  to  discover  a 
proof  anything  more  than  just  inability  to  discover  ? 

Perhaps  we  may  think  of  ourselves  with  reference  to  past  and 
present  as  of  a  man  confined  and  shut  from  the  sight  of  nature 
in  a  single  room  of  a  house  through  which  hitherto  he  has  been 
free  to  wander.  He  can  see  only  the  single  room ;  yet  he  retains 
the  memory  of  the  whole.  The  present  is  the  room,  the  past  is 
the  rest  of  the  house.  Now,  because  the  man  can  see  only  one 
room,  will  he  argue  that  it  alone  exists?  Will  he  not  rather 
believe  that  not  only  that  exists  which  he  meets  in  the  ' '  progress 
of  his  experience,"  but  also  that  which  is  implied  by  what  he 
meets?  This  is  essentially  Bergson's  argument  for  the  existence 
of  the  past.  The  present,  which  we  perceive  and  hence  know  to 
exist,  implies  the  past,  just  as  one  room  of  a  house  implies  the 


1  1(1         Vnivrrsit]!  i>f  Califoniid  I'lthlicntlons  in  I'liilosoph  i/.  f  Vol.  2 

whole;  w  licri'fori',  jiisl  ;is  from  tlic  si^'lit  of  one  room  we  n-ason 
to  I  lie  cxi.stciu'c  of  flic  liouHc,  So  from  llic  ftxistcnce  of  the  present 
to  that  of  the  pjist.  The  pjist  is  iiiacccssihic.  not  non-existf-nt ;  jast 
rts  is — to  chanf^e  tlie  illustration — the  other  sidi;  of  the  moon. 
INrt'c|)tioM  or  implication  in  what  is  perceived,  is  the  test  of 
existenee. 

Doubtless  the  present  cloe.s,  in  some  sense  at  least,  imply  the 
past.  The  man  imjjlias  the  boy.  Hut  whole  man  and  whole  boy 
cannot  eocxist  in  the  same  present,  just  as  two  bodies  eannot  oe- 
eupy  the  same  space.  In  part,  to  be  sure,  they  are  identical,  yet 
in  much  they  are  incompatible.  Nevertheless,  just  as  two  bodies 
can  coexist  in  different  spaces,  contiguously,  so  perhaps  that  part 
of  the  boy  uliicli  is  impenetrable  to  the  man  may  coexist  with 
him,  not  in  the  present,  but  //(  the  past.  Perhaps  the  past  is  a 
fourth  dimension  of  reality,  where  all  things,  all  thoughts,  and  all 
feelings  which  we  suppose  to  have  perished,  still  persist. 

The  foregoing  argument  is  plausible,  and  I  admit  that  mere 
inability  to  find  or  find  anew  is  proof  not  of  non-existence,  but 
of  incompetence.  But  the  cogent  argument  for  the  non-existence 
of  the  past  is  positive,  not  negative.  For  we  have  a  direct  knowl- 
edge not  only  of  existence,  but  of  the  disintegrating  of  existence. 
The  passing  away  of  elements,  we  have  seen  to  be  the  prime  char- 
acter of  temporal  experience.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  inter- 
pret this  experience  more  narrowly.  It  is  the  experience  of  the 
becoming  non-existent  of  a  part  of  ourselves,  of  our  fellows,  or 
of  nature.  The  immediate  content  of  experience  does  not  pass 
suddenly  from  presence  to  pastness ;  it  goes  through  a  transitional 
stage.  "We  can  experience  this  in  the  doing  of  any  deed.  The 
deed  is  not  simply  posited  and  then  gone;  it  is  "doing,"  arising 
and  disintegrating.  We  have  the  same  knowledge  of  the  passing 
of  the  existence  of  the  consciousness  of  another.  We  observe  the 
emerging  and  dissolving  of  his  emotion,  his  coming  to  understand 
our  thought,  his  passing  from  one  topic  to  another.  No  one,  of 
course,  has  ever  observed  his  own  non-existence;  been  conscious 
of  his  own  unconsciousness;  witnessed  the  disappearance  of  his 
entire  self.  Yet  such  an  experience  is  only  the  unattainable  limit 
of  quite  undeniable  and  commonplace  experiences.  We  do  ex- 
perience the  wavering  of  our  consciousness.    The  content  it  em- 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  147 

braces  may  become  increasingly  small  in  extent,  intensity,  and 
vividness.  This  occurs  in  falling  asleep.  To  be  sure  no  one  has 
ever  observed  himself  fall  asleep ;  the  passage  from  consciousness 
to  unconsciousness  is  a  chasm  which  no  consciousness  can  bridge. 
A  limit  may  come  after  all  the  members  of  the  series  of  which  it 
is  the  limit.^^  Thus  the  idea  of  one's  own  total  non-existence, 
when  the  "earth-forgetting  eyelids  keep  the  morningless  and  un- 
awakening  sleep,"  is  a  limiting  concept  irresistibty  forced  upon 
us  by  the  experiences  of  the  partial  loss  of  much  that  one  calls 
one's  self.  But  the  idea  of  the  total  non-existence  of  a  self,  of 
his  having  once  existed  but  as  no  longer  existing,  is  derived  chiefly 
from  watching  one's  fellow  fall  asleep  or  die.  Here  one  passes 
from  a  condition  where  one  gets  ideas  which  denote  consciousness 
or  activity,  through  a  state  where  those  ideas  are  less  numerous 
and  increasingly  less  active,  to  one  where  no  such  ideas  appear. 
Has  consciousness  become  inaccessible,  just  as  the  consciousness 
of  the  man  in  China  is  inaccessible,  or  has  it  ceased  altogether? 
The  former  supposition  rests  on  the  misinterpretation  of  this 
experience. 

It  rests  on  the  confusion,  already  noticed,  of  the  experience 
of  passing  out  of  the  self  with  the  experience  of  disintegrating 
wdthin  the  self.  It  is  a  different  experience — that  of  turning  the 
head  when  certain  elements  of  the  landscape  leave  our  view,  from 
that  when  the  light  is  extinguished  in  our  view.  Contents  not 
only  come  into  and  go  out  of  the  self,  they  arise  and  break  up 
within  it.  We  know  that  the  latter  have  not  gone  elsewhere, 
because  we  know  that  they  do  not  exist  to  go.  The  mind  is  not 
a  stage  on  which  thoughts  and  feelings  flit  to  and  fro ;  it  is  just 
the  totality  of  these  themselves,  and  their  supposed  disappearance 
is  really  their  perishing. 

One  reason  for  this  confusion  is  the  apparent  "return"  of 
thoughts.  When  the  time  of  rest  comes,  we  leave  the  thoughts 
that  busied  us  during  the  hours  of  labor.  The  next  morning 
they  crowd  upon  us,  seemingly  quite  the  same,  and  we  greet  them 
as  old  friends.    Moreover,  they  do  not  return  like  memories,  pale 


13  For  the  conception  of  non-existence  as  a  limit,  see  Boodin,  Time  and 
Beality. 


148        Univcrsihj  of  Califoniia  I'ufjlicalions  in  I'hilosophy.  f Vol.  2 

jiikI  inc(»?ii|ilc|i' ;  (licy  rrtiii-ri  lull  hlnodcd  and  whole.  ()v(t  and 
over  aj,'ain  we  think  Ihf  saiiif  IhouKhls.  And  the  identity  of 
the  srlf  is  (h'stroycd  and  the  plain  deliverance  of  consciousness 
falsified  it",  in  det'ei-ence  to  precfjiieeived  theory,  we  {tssert  that  tlie 
thouglits  arc  now,  hut  their  meaning  old. 

Well,  just  as  the  thoughts  of  yesterday  could  be  disintegrated, 
those  same  thoughts  can  be  reintegrated.  The  same  thoughts 
form  a)inr.  We  can  observe  their  new  formation,  just  as  we  ob- 
served tlieir  origin  and  (h'cay.  Existence  is  a  creation  and  a 
birth;  it  is  also  a  re-creation  and  a  rebirth.  When  elements  and 
their  complexes  disappear,  they  do  not  need  to  be  praserved  in 
some  pale  limbo  of  the  pavst,  in  order  to  reappear.  To  think  so 
is  evidence  of  bondage  to  the  crude  metaphysics  of  substance,  in 
ignorance  of  the  fluid  and  resilient  character  of  reality.  Creation, 
partial  annihilation,  and  partial  re-creation  are  the  nature  of 
reality.  The  man  exists  not  at  all  between  dreamless  sleep  and 
awakening.  Yet,  in  the  morning,  identically  the  same  man  re- 
exists.  Of  course  not  the  whole  man,  for  part  of  him  will  have 
perished  irrevocably.  Only  such  elements  can  re-exist  which  are 
compatible  with  the  changing  present.  Still,  in  part,  our  life 
is  a  continual  resurrection.  There  is  mysterv'  in  this,  only  in  the 
eyes  of  those  w'ho  accept  a  crude  prejudice.  It  is  the  rendering 
of  our  most  intimate  experiences. 

As  for  the  implication  of  the  past  by  the  present,  it  is  of 
course  a  fact.  Yet  the  implication  is  not  of  existence.  Since 
the  total  past  does  not  exist,  it  must  affirm  something  else  of 
the  past  in  relation  to  the  present.  That  which  is  really  implied 
of  the  past  is  the  truth  that  it  did  exist,  or  the  character  of 
having  existed,  and  to  this  truth  we  pass  not  by  mere  implication, 
but  by  direct  experience. 

We  do  so  in  this  wise.  The  experiences  of  the  dissolving  of 
content  are  the  lines  which  connect  present  and  past,  existence 
and  non-existence.  Our  immediate  experiences  are  known  to  us 
as  existing.  Our  memories  tell  us  of  content  which  does  not 
exist,  w^hich  yet  stands  in  a  most  intimate  relation  to  what  does 
exist.  Even  as  we  make  this  observation  we  observe  the  slipping 
into  non-existence  of  the  existent.  It  is  through  such  experiences 
that  we  connect  the  idea  of  existence  with  what  our  memory  tells 


1913]         Parker :  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  149 

us  does  not  exist.  For  in  such  experiences  we  seem  to  combine, 
as  it  were,  existence  and  non-existence.  The  transitional  ex- 
periences lead  us  to  make  the  judgment :  this  which  does  not 
exist,  did  exist.  Through  the  categorj^  of  the  becoming  non- 
existent we  pass  to  that  of  the  once  existed.  This  idea  of  exist- 
ence Avliich  attaches  to  that  of  non-existence  is  the  category  of 
had  existence.  "When  w  unites  with  w -no^,  it  becomes  was.  "Was 
(were),"  "did  exist,"  is  the  category  of  the  past. 

We  are  not  seeking  an  explanation  of  the  categories  of  pass- 
ing and  becoming,  or  of  "did  exist"  and  "will  exist."  We  do 
not  hope  to  convince  anyone  who  says  that  the  existent  and  non- 
existent he  understands,  but  that  which  is  coming  into  or  passing 
from  existence  or  once  did  exist  he  does  not  understand.  We 
know  the  reason  tvhy  he  does  not  understand :  he  seeks  to  construe 
an  ultimate  category  in  terms  of  something  else.^*  Yes,  change, 
becoming,  passing  away,  and  their  derivative,  the  ivas,  are  ultimate 
categories.  They  are  the  categories  of  our  time  experience.  Who- 
ever denies  them  must  treat  time  as  an  illusion.  One  must  either 
understand  or  deny  time ;  one  cannot  explain  it.  AATiat  is  ultim- 
ate we  cannot  interpret,  for  there  is  no  vantage  point  from  which 
to  survey  it.  That  is  mysterious  for  which,  although  it  can  have 
no  explanation,  we  seek  to  find  one.  Mystery  gives  place  to 
understanding  as  soon  as  we  cease  to  seek  for  the  reason  of  the 
ultimate  premises. 

Besides  the  actual  observation  of  the  disintegration  of  con- 
tents, we  have  another  indication  of  the  non-existence  of  the  past. 
The  past  possesses  no  longer  one  of  the  prime  characters  of  exist- 
ence. Whatever  exists  changes  and  grows,  and  never  attains 
completion.  It  is  ever  developing  itself  and,  interacting  with 
other  existents,  is  a  force  in  the  world.  In  short,  it  is  active.  The 
past,  on  the  other  hand,  is  complete,  and  cannot  grow.  Out  of 
the  present,  to  be  sure,  is  being  precipitated  always  more  of  the 
past;  new  chapters  are  added;  but  the  significant  thing  is  that 
the  old  are  finished.  The  living  can  make  their  mark,  but  the 
record  of  the  dead  is  complete.  And  only  so  far  as  present,  is 
the  past  a  force  in  existence.  Unlike  the  total  present,  the  total 
past  does  nothing.    In  short,  the  past  is  inactive.    Accordingly, 


1*  Compare  Lotze,  Metaphysics,  Bosanquet  's  translation,  p.  265. 


150        lJn\v( rsiiij  of  (UiUfornid  J'lihlicalions  in  Philosophy.  I V"'-  ^ 

con  rspDiidiii^'  t(i  tlir  aclivily  of  llic  cxistciil  and  the  iii;u,'tivily 
dl'  the  noil  cxislciit,  I  shall  licrraricr  rclVr  sliort  ly  to  idcjis  which 
know  tlic  former  as  "active,"  and  to  tlio-se  whicli  know  tlic  latter 
as  "inactive."  And  since  ideas,  so  far  as  adeciuate,  resemble 
their  objects,  these  distinctions  denote  genuine  characters  of  them, 
I<'or  just  as  the  objects  of  the  one  kind  are  fluid,  while  those  of 
the  hitter  are  static,  so  are  the  corresponding  ideas. 

Not  only  do  we  thus  have  positive  proof  that  the  past  does 
not  exist;  we  may  also  urg(!  that  the  notion  of  its  eternal  actuality 
contradicts  the  entire  meaning  of  the  temporal  experience.  This 
is  especially  clear  in  the  ca«e  of  our  volitional  experiences. 

Thus,  in  distress  we  strive  to  get  rid  of  pain,  vee  do  not  seek 
merely  to  get  a  painless  experience.  Our  primary  effort  is  to 
destroy  the  pain.  Our  aim  is  to  annihilate  the  old,  not  to  insti- 
tute sometliing  new.  The  distressed  will  would  not  be  satisfied 
merely  to  produce  a  relieved  will,  if  itself  were  to  exist  never- 
theless. We  do  aim  to  be  free  from  pain,  but  we  assume  that 
such  freedom  guarantees  the  non-existence  of  pain.  The  efforts 
of  the  painful  consciousness  are  not  so  altruistic  as  to  aim  only 
to  produce  a  sense  of  relief  iu  another  consciousness  contiguous 
with  its  own. 

The  obverse  of  this  experience  is  made  equally  ridiculous,  if 
one  accepts  the  view  of  the  actualitj''  of  the  past :  I  mean  the 
effort  to  retain  a  pleasant  experience.  That  view  would  have  to 
interpret  this  as  the  attempt  to  create  in  another  experience  what 
one  experience  possesses.  But  of  course  it  is  the  effort  to  prevent 
the  experience  from  disappearing  altogether.  It  clings  to  what 
is  behind ;  it  does  not  push  something  in  front. 

The  meaning  of  our  creative  activity  is  likewise  falsified  by 
this  view,  if  extended  to  make  the  future  exist  as  well  as  the  past. 
The  artist  or  the  practical  man  is  aiming  to  make  something  abso- 
lutely new ;  to  bring  into  existence,  not  merely  to  stand  in  some 
sort  of  teleological  or  other  relation  to  what  does  exist.  However 
vivid  and  compulsive  his  ideal  may  be,  he  is  aware  that  it  does 
not  exist ;  that  the  work  of  his  will  is  realization,  a  making  real, 
not  a  mere  static  being,  related  as  eternal  condition  to  an  eternal 
actual  product. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  151 

Surely  if  our  making,  growing,  gaining  and  losing  experience 
is  static  and  eternal,  our  experience  is  illusory  and  falsifying. 
We  mourn  not  over  the  merely  inaccessible,  we  mourn  for  what 
is  lost ;  our  hopes  are  not  in  a  joy  that  is  actual,  but  in  one  that 
we  genuinely  create.  We  grow;  and  in  growing,  we  are  not  a 
mere  series  of  eternal  experiences  that  greet  one  another  across 
the  intervals  of  the  time-stream.  For  in  growing  we  also  outgrow  ; 
and  we  find  something  that  existed  not  before ;  we  both  gain  and 
lose.     We  are  not  a  whole  series  of  selves,  but  one  self. 

Accepting  as  proved  the  thesis  that  the  past  does  not  exist,  we 
have,  finally,  to  answer  the  question  which  precipitated  the  entire 
discussion.  If  the  past  does  not  exist,  how  can  we  know  it?  In 
reply,  we  point  out,  in  the  first  place,  that  we  unquestionably  do 
know  many  things  of  which  existence  cannot  be  predicated.  The 
mathematical  entities  are  illustrations.  Our  knowledge  of  these 
is  fully  as  adequate  as  our  knowledge  of  the  past,  yet  they  clearly 
have  no  existence.  One  might,  to  be  sure,  assert  that  when  we 
know  them  they  come  into  existence.  They  then  have  what  Bren- 
tano  calls  "intentional  inexistence"  in  the  mind:  that  is  to  say. 
there  then  exist  ideas  which  mean  them  as  their  objects.  Yet 
they  have  no  independent  existence ;  as  mere  ideal  objects,  they 
cannot  exist  at  all.  They  are  not,  and  never  could  become,  con- 
crete experiences,  which  they  would  have  to  be  in  order  to  exist. 

Now,  the  case  of  the  knowledge  of  the  past  is  similar.  That 
the  past  ha.s  ideal  being  is  unquestionable.  Possession  of  being 
is  requisite  for  the  being  known  of  any  object.  We  cannot  ask 
if  in  this  sense  the  past  is  real.  If  our  ideas  of  the  past  have 
any  meaning,  any  sense,  they  refer  to  an  object  which  has  at 
least  logical  being.  The  object  referred  to  by  any  idea  which  has 
meaning,  that  is,  which  does  not  involve  a  contradiction,  ha.s 
being.  We  prove  the  being  of  the  object  of  our  ideas  by  an 
attempt  to  get  adequate,  fully  realized  ideas,^"'  or,  where  this  is 
impossible,  to  make  sure  that  our  ideas  do  not  mean  objects  which 
are  with  themselves  or  with  other  objects  contradictory.  Thus 
to  prove  the  being  of  the  color  red  I  seek  an  experience  which 


15  It  is  a  postulate,  that  adequate  ideas  cannot  be  contradictory.  For  ex- 
ample, mathematicians  prove  the  consistency  of  postulates  by  "finding" 
an  object  which  realizes  them. 


152        Unirrrsil  1/  of  Cnl  ifonnd  I'lihlifol  i())is  i)i  riiil()snj)h]i.   (Vol.  2 

shall  satisfy  m-  fiillil  all  that  I  iman  hy  n-fl  ;  in  other  word.s,  I  see 
flic  colnr.  Ilci-r  I  iiicaii  all  that  I  cxpcficiKM'  arnl  experience  all 
thill  T  mean.  If  on  the  other  IimimI  I  wisJi  to  make  .sure  of  the 
hein^;  of  the  t^rey  nuittxT  of  my  brain,  1  am  earet'ul  to  discover 
that  my  meaning  does  not  contradict  other  well-founded  meanings 
and  is,  in  addition,  the  only  meaning  that  makes  the  total  physio- 
logical knowledge  of  my  body  harmonious.  Intermediate  are 
such  cases  as  our  ideas  of  physical  objects  like  a  desk,  where  we 
can  get  partly  adequate  ideas,  but  for  the  rest  rely  on  the  con- 
sistency of  our  ideas  with  the  remainder  of  our  knowledge. 

Just  so,  we  are  sure  of  the  being  of  the  past.  We  cannot, 
of  course,  realize  our  meanings ;  but  we  can,  within  limits,  ascer- 
tain  that  they  are  not  self-contradictory.  Later,  when  we  dis- 
cuss historical  verification,  we  shall  pursue  this  subject  further. 
It  is  suflficient  here  to  indicate  that  knowledge  does  not  imply 
the  existence  of  the  object  known,  but  only  its  being.  It  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  moreover,  that  to  possess  any  objectifying  idea, 
so  long  as  it  is  not  self-contradictory  or  inconsistent  with  other 
meanings,  is  to  know  the  object  meant  by  that  idea.  To  possess 
objectifying  ideas  is  all  that  can  be  meant  by  knowledge.  Now, 
we  possess  such  ideas  of  the  past.  The  possession  of  these  ideas 
is  knowledge  of  the  past.  "Whether  the  objects  of  these  ideas 
exist  or  not,  is  indifferent.  In  order  to  know,  the  ideas  of  course 
must  exist ;  the  total  object  meant  by  them  need  not  exist.  The 
memory  of  our  past  is  not  the  total  past  remembered.  But,  so 
long  as  our  memory  refers  to  an  object,  is  a  genuine,  that  is,  a 
consistent  meaning,  it  knows  its  object. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  NATURE  OP  HISTORICAL  TRUTH 

The  past  does  not  exist,  j-et  can  be  known, — such  is  the  con- 
clusion of  the  preceding  chapter.  The  possession  of  objectifying 
ideas  is  the  knowledge  of  the  past;  whether  the  object  of  those 
ideas  exists  or  not,  is  irrelevant  so  far  as  mere  knowledge  is  con- 
cerned. For  the  past,  at  any  rate,  has  Being,  that  is,  a  deter- 
minate character  which  we  can  imitate,  can  embody  in  our  ideas. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  153 

This  what  has  "intentional  inexistence"  in  the  idea;  in  the 
knowing  experience  we  are  aware  of  it  as  a  character  that  be- 
longed to  a  complete  experience  that  has  disappeared.  We  have 
thus  shown  how  we  can  know  the  non-existent  past.  But  our 
account  of  the  knowledge  of  the  past  has  been  decidedly  incom- 
plete. Much  is  yet  to  be  made  clear.  Having  determined  the 
possibility  of  a  knowledge  of  the  past,  we  have  next  to  enquire 
what  that  knowledge  would  reveal  if  it  were  as  complete  as  pos- 
sible ;  in  other  words,  what  the  ideal  of  history  is,  the  nature  of 
Historical  Truth. 

The  effort  to  determine  the  ideal  of  a  knowledge  so  frag- 
mentary as  that  of  the  past  may  well  awaken  a  quid  juris?  The 
rationale  of  such  an  endeavor  is,  however,  as  follows.  "We  re- 
flectively consider  all  that  our  actual  knowledge  reveals ;  we  then 
observe  that  there  are  certain  lacunae  in  this  revelation,  blank 
places  which  would  have  to  be  filled  in  order  that  what  we  do 
know  may  be  itself  complete;  these  blank  places  thus  do  not  go 
unwitnessed ;  their  being  is  testified  to,  inadequately :  just  as  the 
map  of  a  country,  while  accurately  reproducing  the  shape  of  the 
boundary,  and  other  features,  also  hints  that  there  is  much  which 
does  not  appear  in  the  drawing ;  or  just  as  from  our  knowledge  of 
the  law  of  the  w^hole  number-series,  we  are  aware  of  the  being 
of  more  numbers  than  we  have  ever  observed.  This  implies  that 
our  ideas  can  mean,  can  know  partially  and  inadequately  where 
they  do  not  know  completely.  Now  we  project  an  ideal  of  knowl- 
edge, by  supposing  that  where  our  ideas  are  insufficient,  there  they 
are  complete,  where  they  are  obscure,  they  are  clear.  We  take 
a  survey  of  the  whole  field,  and  imagine  that  the  whole  is  pos- 
sessed of  all  the  details  which  it  implies  but  does  not  present. 
We  apperceive  a  formal  structure,  a  scheme  of  relations  which 
itself  implies  more;  we  then  say:  This  outline  completed  would 
be  the  whole,  the  Truth. 

Our  first  task  in  determining  the  nature  of  historical  truth 
is  the  settlement  of  an  important  controversy.  Is  history  a  natural 
science,  a  branch  of  psychology  interested  in  the  analysis  of  past 
mental  states  and  the  ascertainment  of  their  laws,  or  an  appre- 
ciative science,  aiming  at  the  living  understanding  and  criticism 
of  their  meaning,  or  intent? 


If)-}         f^nircrsil  !i  of  ('(iliftiniid  I'liIiliCal  ions  in  riiilosoph  if.   (Vol.  L' 

'I'lic  ;ii).s\\Ti-  to  this  (|ii('sti(iii  is.  \\c  hdifvi'.  tli;il  it  mihodics  a 
f.'ilsc  (lisjiiiift  ir)n.  Until  tlic  [)sycliii|(i^fic;il  ;in(l  tin-  ai)j)rfciativ(' 
troatmciits  of  history  arc  necessary  for  the  fullest  ktiowlcdj^c  of 
the  past.  For  each  represents  one  of  the  two  fundamental  kinds 
of  kno\vled<;e,  or  rather  one  of  the  two  aspects  of  complete  knowl- 
edge. Knowlcd^'*'  is  ideally  a  universal  concept  filled  with  an 
individual  representation;  it  is  a  unification  and  a  j)rcsentation  ; 
a  nieaniu}:?  and  an  imafjje.  It  demands  the  individualization  of  a 
concept  through,  if  possible,  the  very  object  itself,  or  else  through 
a  concrete  representation  thereof, — image,  picture,  map,  etc.  Tlie 
one  side  presents  the  individual  object  itself,  the  other  exhibits 
its  identity  (or  its  relations)  with  other  objects.  Now,  each  of 
these  functions  may  be  emphasized  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  The 
emphasis  of  the  one  results  in  classificatory,  abstract,  analytic 
science ;  the  emphasis  of  the  other,  in  concrete,  biographic,  appre- 
ciative science, — at  the  extreme  limit,  in  art.  There  are  many 
gradations  between  the  extreme  limits  of  each.  The  psychological 
treatment  of  history  is  of  the  former  kind.  It  seeks  to  find  uni- 
versal concepts  under  which  to  subsume  men  and  events,  thus 
establishing  laws  and  causal  explanations.  In  so  far  as  psycho- 
physical laws  are  possible,  it  connects  the  life  of  individuals 
and  societies  with  physiological  and  physical  facts.  It  differs 
from  abstract  psychology,  which  deals  with  mere  conceptual  con- 
tents, because  it  asserts  that  contents  of  such  and  such  kind  and 
character  "did  exist."  The  object  of  pure  abstract  science  is 
eternal,  for  the  mere  concept  cannot,  as  such,  exist. 

Only  when  we  consider  states  of  consciousness  not  as  mere 
ideal  contents,  but  as  individualized  in  an  existence,  do  they  be- 
come an  object  of  historical  science,  a  piece  of  the  past.  To  be 
sure,  this  existence  is  gone,  it  is  not  eternal,  for  it  is  just  that 
which  arises  and  passes  away  and  cannot  be  recovered.  Yet  the 
truth  that  existence  did  attach  to  a  given  ideal  content  is  eternal. 
Such  truths  are  the  objects  of  history.  That  the  complex  of 
describable  characters  which  we  call  Lincoln  did  exist,  that  it 
did  mean  and  will  and  do  something  whose  effects  we  appreciate 
to  this  day,  that  is  an  historical  truth  or  fact.  Psychological 
history  does  not  seek  to  reproduce  the  past ;  nor  does  it  aim  merely 
at  embodying  the  ideal  and  eternal  being  of  the  past;  it  seeks 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  155 

to  incorporate  a  complex  of  truths  or  propositions,  which  indeed 
truly  are,  eternally,  and  which  assert  that  psychic  being  of  such 
a  nature  did  live  and  die.  History  becomes  appreciative,  when 
we  take  our  memories,  and  whatever  other  objectifying  ideas 
that  we  can  get  which  refer  to  the  past,  and  revivify  them.  We 
fill  out  the  abstract  truths  with  a  concrete  life.  As  Simmel 
says,^''  appreciative  history  is  a  Nacliahmung  of  the  sub- 
jectivity of  others,  only  this  subjectivity  does  not  exist.  Unlike 
the  direct  assimilation  of  the  subjectivity  of  our  fellows  which  is 
the  testimony  to  their  existence,"  this  nacJibilden  is,  like  the 
drama,  an  evoking  of  an  activity  w^hich  corresponds  to  no  exist- 
ence. But,  unlike  the  drama,  history  imitates  an  activity  that  did 
exist.  Caesar  did  live,  whereas  Peer  Gynt  did  not.  The  active 
ideas  which  make  up  our  concrete  knowledge  of  the  past,  of  our 
fellow's  existence,  of  a  fictitious  character,  have  in  each  case  a 
specific  and  well-known  nuance.  We  are  aware  that  the  active 
ideas  which  give  us  even  the  fragments  of  knowledge  of  our  fel- 
low man  when  he  speaks  to  us  in  an  ill-understood  tongue  (to 
make  the  cases  parallel  in  point  of  inadequacy  of  knowledge)  dif- 
fer from  the  active  ideas  which  the  historian  awakens  in  us  in 
order  to  make  some  figure  of  the  past  live  again  for  us,  and  we 
are  also  aware  that  both  kinds  of  ideas  differ  from  those  which 
we  derive  from  a  dramatic  performance  where  we  learn  the  char- 
acter of  the  hero.  These  differences  express  respectively  the  three 
propositions  which  always,  in  such  cases,  come  under  our  apper- 
ception:  "he  exists,"  "he  did  exist,"  "he  does  not  exist."  Ap- 
preciative history  thus  takes  its  place  alongside  of  the  imitative 
arts  which  deal  with  life.  It  is  a  make-believe,  a  curious  and 
cunning  effort  to  re-create  an  experience  of  other-activity  which 
does  not  but  yet  did  exist.  As  Simmel  says,  it  requires  the  same 
imitative  and  sympathetic  imagination  employed  by  all  inter- 
pretative and  creative  arts. 

Thus  both  Miinsterberg  and  his  opponents  are  right.  The 
two  kinds  of  history  are  complementary.  Each  gives  what  the 
other  lacks,  and  neither  is  dispensable.  The  concept  and  the 
intuition,  science  and  life,  are  not  antagonistic;  the  one  gives  a 


1 6  GescMchtsphilosophie,  p.  240. 
'7  See  pages  143,  144,  above. 


1 .")()        University  of  Calif  oni  in  J ' ublications  in  rhilosophij.  I  Vol.  2 

j>art  of  all  objects,  tin;  otlicr  llic  whole  of  a  sirif^le  (jbject.  Yet 
Miiiisterborp'.s"'  critioism  of  Riekert's'"  view  that  history  and 
psychol(){?y  dilTer  only  in  1li;if  tlie  one  deals  with  the  individual, 
the  other  with  the  universal  law,  is  unanswerable.  Science  does 
seek  a  knowledge  of  objects  a.s  well  as  a  knowledge  of  laws.  Its 
aim  is  nothing  short  of  acquaintance  with  the  universe  of  all 
entities,  individually  and  in  their  relations.  Riekert's  theory  of 
science  would  be  good  if  it  were  frankly  pragmatic.  For  the 
needs  of  life,  the  short-hand  formula,  we  admit,  is  the  prime 
object  of  interest.  Knowledge  of  the  formula  enables  us  to  pre- 
dict and  prepare.  But  to  satisfy  our  scientific  craving,  knowl- 
edge of  the  entire  " unilhersehhares  Mannigfiiltifjkcit"  would 
have  to  be  added.  And,  besides,  the  law  is  not  a  mere  tool  use- 
ful for  purposes  of  simplification.^"  It  gives  us  the  form  of 
objects,  and  this  form  interests  us  for  its  own  sake.  Science  seeks 
knowledge  of  series  of  objects,  together  with  the  laws  of  such 
series. 

Rickert  has  room  for  only  a  subjectivistic  view  of  history. 
For  him  no  true  units  can  be  given  to  the  historian;  they  can 
only  be  created  in  accordance  with  his  interests.  So  many  his- 
torians, so  many  units.  Yet  units  are  really  given.  They  are 
the  self-felt  unities  of  the  single  volitional  acts  of  individuals 
whose  lives  history  aims  at  reproducing  and  re-enacting.  All  such 
teleological  unities  are  the  matter  of  history.  To  be  sure,  in 
accordance  with  our  limited  purview  and  sympathies,  our  actual 
history  selects.  But  it  is  not  for  this  reason  creative,  but  partial. 
Its  limitations  are  regrettable.  They  are  due  to  us,  not  to  the 
object.  Riekert's  efforts  to  reinstate  the  objectivity  of  the  his- 
torical unit,  and  to  find  a  basis  for  the  selection  of  historical 
material  by  appealing  to  transcendent  norms,  is  futile.  The 
standard  of  knowledge  is  the  object,  not  the  interests  of  the 
knower.  The  form  of  history  is  not  a  transcendent  value,  but 
those  truths  which  assert  that  such  and  such  individuals  did  exist. 
The  business  of  history  is  simply  to  reproduce  and  vitalize  these 


18  GrundzUge,  drittes  Kapitel  "Die  Welt  der  Werte, "  sechste  Abschnitt, 
TIB. 

19  Dip   Grenzen    der   naturicissenschaftUchtn    Begriffsbildung,    drittes   u. 
viertes  Kapitel. 

20  Compare  Eickert,  op.  cit.,  p.  123. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  157 

truths.  The  more  of  these  truths  it  embodies,  the  more  compre- 
hensive it  is,  the  more  perfect  its  work. 

Although  the  individual  volitional  act  is  the  starting-point, 
the  unit,  it  is  not  the  goal  of  history.  History  aims  at  under- 
standing the  meaningful  connections  of  the  activities  that  have 
gone.  It  traces  the  influence  of  one  act  on  another  within  the 
life  of  a  single  person,  and  through  the  lives  of  others.  It  sees 
how  the  ideal  of  one  moment  is  carried  out  in  another,  or  fails 
to  find  fulfilment,  then  only  to  reappear  perhaps  in  a  later  and 
more  hospitable  age.  It  re-enacts  the  struggle  and  the  victory 
of  aims.  But  the  daily  aspirations  and  routine  life  of  the  man 
on  the  lonely  farm  are  not  less  its  proper  object  than  the  fate  of 
the  Caesars  or  the  tragedy  of  the  Cross. 

The  fact  that  appreciative  history  re-enacts  the  individual 
intent  as  it  lived,  in  all  its  narrowness  and  ignorance,  and  also 
sees  that  intent  in  all  its  relations  to  the  other  intents  which 
knew,  imitated,  or  contended  against  it,  gives  rise  to  a  problem. 
"When  the  self  is  seen  in  its  interrelations,  is  it  not  another  self? 
When  the  momentary  will  is  understood  in  the  light  of  its  basis 
and  ultimate  issue,  is  it  not  another  will  from  that  which  half 
blindly  resolved  and  acted  ?  Is  not  the  contrast  between  the  self 
as  it  understood  itself  and  as  we  understand  it,  one  that  cannot 
be  healed?  If  we  know  the  subject  in  its  relations,  do  we  not 
cease  to  know  the  subject  as  it  actually  was?  If  you  destroy 
its  loneliness,  do  you  not  destroy  its  essence  ?  History  cannot  know 
the  individual  as  he  was,  if  it  knows  him  as  related.  The  thing 
apart  and  the  thing  as  related  are  not  one  and  the  same. 

Of  course  there  might  be  a  purely  individualistic  history, 
which  would  strive  to  re-create  the  personality  just  as  it  lived, 
without  interpretation  or  understanding.  It  would  record  the 
judgments  of  the  persons  themselves  upon  themselves  or  upon 
one  another,  it  would  not  itself  judge  of  the  truth  or  falsity  of 
these,  or  add  its  own  judgments.  It  would  not  assert  what  the 
influence  of  one  intent  upon  another  actually  was;  it  would 
merely  record  what  the  first  intent  hoped  its  influence  would  be, 
and  what  the  other  felt  it  to  be.  Such  history  would  be  difficult, 
but  would  it  be  impossible? 


ir)S        IJniversitij  of  Cdlifoniid  I'ublicationa  in  Philosophy.  fVol.  2 

Yet  lliis  would  phiiiily  iiol  \>r  llif  wlmlc  of  history.  And 
llif  conlrjidict  inn  in  keeping'  Ititlli  |)(»inls  of  view,  tlic  individual 
and  llic  universal,  is  only  appari.'Ul.  It  is  soIvcmI  il"  \\'(;  k(!(;p  in 
mind  that  truth  is  not  (.'xistencc.  Trutli  might  include  existence, 
but  it  is  more  than  existence.  Truth  gives  relations  between 
existents;  llie  (•one(i)t  as  well  as  the  individual;  and  by  existing 
an  individual  does  not  destroy  that  which  is  true  of  him,  nor 
do  these  truths  destroy  his  actuality.  Tlie  truths  ah()ut  a  person 
ai'e  no  iiioi-e  he  than  the  iclalions  of  a  thing  are  its  individual 
being.  The  similarity  of  two  colors  is  not  those  colors,  although 
it  "is"  between  them. 

Thus,  Kant's  purpo.ses  and  thoughts  as  he  lived  them,  as  he 
transcribed  them  iu  the  "Criti(iue  of  Practical  Reason,"  were 
his  actuality.  Tliat  actuality  of  course  is  gone,  and  cannot  re- 
appear. Yet  "that  it  existed"  is  an  eternal  truth.  This  truth 
in  its  isolation  might  be  the  object  of  some  very  "objective"  and 
impartial  biographer.  Kant  as  he  was  when  writing  this  Critique 
would  then  be  reproduced.  And  the  effort  of  another  historian 
in  tracing  the  intluence  of  this  work,  in  judging  of  its  success  or 
failure,  in  showing  how,  unknown  to  its  author,  it  was  destined 
to  influence  all  later  ethical  speculation  and  even  to  reappear  in 
a  doctrine  which  the  old  philosopher  would  have  been  ashamed 
to  recognize  as  his  offspring,  would  not  in  sooth  reproduce  Kant 's 
existence.  But  it  would  reproduce  the  "truth  about  Kant." 
Kant  as  understood  is  not  Kant's  past  existence,  but  Kant's 
ideal  and  eternal  essence.  But  the  two  Kants,  although  thus 
genuinely  separated,  are  not  opposed  or  unrelated;  for  the  one 
Kant  is  the  truth  about  the  other.  The  individuals  as  understood, 
and  the  teleological  relations  between  them,  did  not  and  do  not 
exist;  yet  they  are.  They  are  eternal  truths  which  do  not  pass 
away.  The  man  passes  away,  the  truth  about  him  does  not.  .\nd 
although  the  individual,  isolated  person  disappears,  the  truth 
that  he  existed  does  not.  There  is  only  one  proposition  that  is 
not  eternal,  namely,  that  A  exists.  Yet  this  becomes  "A  ex- 
isted," which  is  eternal.  The  truth  that  all  truths  are  not  eternal 
is  the  truth  that  there  is  change.  Thus  there  are  two  sets  of 
truths,  separate  but  not  opposed,  which  history  may  reproduce: 


1'^13]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  159 

the  truth  that  A  existed,  which  tells  us  what  he  was  as  he  saw 
his  own  intent  and  blundered  accordingly;  and  the  truth  which 
is  true  of  A,  that  he  did  err  and  that  his  error  resulted  in  the 
sleep  of  science  for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  which  tells  us  how 
A  would  appear  if  known  and  interpreted  by  a  final  insight.  Both 
existential  and  ideal  truths  are  the  legitimate  objects  of  history. 
They  are  side  by  side  and  in  peace. 

Here  we  have  the  solution  of  an  apparent  contradiction 
springing  from  the  nature  of  relations.  When  I  think  of  Aris- 
totle, as  I  did  a  moment  ago  when  I  wrote  the  last  paragraph, 
did  he  not  become  a  different  Aristotle?  for  as  he  was,  he  was 
not  thought  of,  for  my  thought  did  not  exist ;  but  now  that  I 
think  of  him  he  has  entered  into  a  new  relation  which  was  ndt 
true  of  him  then.  Two  entities  are  not  one  and  the  same  unless 
you  can  predicate  of  the  one  all  that  you  can  predicate  of  the 
other.  Thus  every  time  I  think  of  Aristotle,  it  would  seem,  I  do 
not  think  of  the  same  Aristotle,  for  Aristotle  thought  of  is  not 
the  same  as  Aristotle  not  thought  of.  The  absurdity  results  from 
again  confusing  truth  with  existence.  My  thinking  of  Aristotle 
did  not  enter  into  his  existence ;  for  it  itself  did  not  then  exist, 
nor  can  it  enter  into  his  existence,  for  his  existence  is  now  gone. 
But  that  I  now  think  of  him  is  true  of  Aristotle,  and  it  was  true 
long  ago  that  I  should  think  of  him.  In  other  words,  although 
my  thinking  of  Aristotle  did  not  exist  when  he  lived,  and  forms 
no  part  of  his  existence,  that  I  this  day  think  of  Aristotle  is  part 
of  the  eternal  truth  about  Aristotle,  Avhich  is  true,  not  now  or 
then,  but  eternally.  This  truth  is  part  of  his  ideal  essence,  being 
one  insignificant  detail  of  his  vast  influence.  Thus  his  essence 
is  unchanged  by  my  thought;  for  that  essence  is  eternal  and 
includes  the  truth  that  he  was  the  subject  of  my  thought  on 
this  day  of  Grace ;  and  his  existence  is  unchanged,  for  it  docs  not 
exist  to  change,  and  the  truth  that  he  did  exist  in  the  way  he  did 
is  consequently  unchanged.  Hence  when  I  think  of  Aristotle  I 
may  think  of  the  truth  that  he  existed,  without  thinking  of  his 
essence  which  includes  my  being.  And  even  if  I  did  think  of 
that  essence  I  might  think  of  only  a  part  of  it.  An  intent  can 
fixate  a  part  of  being  without  thereby  destroying  it.  I  seldom 
think  of  my  thinking. 


160        Universilif  <>f  (UiJifornid  I'uhlicatioyis  in  J'hilosophy.  [Vol.  2 

The  case  is  similar,  altli<)ii^,'li  le.ss  eoinplicatcd,  wlien  I  think 
of  abstract  objeets.  Suppose  I  think  of  the  number  One.  Do 
you  say  that  the  number  One  has  become  other  because  formerly 
it  was  not  thoup^ht  of,  wliilc  now  it  is,  thus  entering  into  a  new 
relation?  And  do  you  ask  which  number  One  I  am  thinking  of? 
The  answer  is  that  Ihcrc  is  oidy  a  single  number  One,  which  is 
unalTceted  by  my  third<ing,  just  because  it  is  eternally  related 
to  all  knowers.  The  truth  that  One  is  known  to  me  is  one  of 
the  relations  which  are  eternally  true  of  One.  This  relation  does 
not  come  into  existence  when  I  think  of  One;  for  it  has  no 
existence  and  is  not  in  time.  Being  known  to  A,  to  B,  to  C,  is  part 
of  the  being  of  One.  It  is  as  eternal  as  One  is.  The  whole 
truth  about  any  term  includes  all  its  relations,  and  these  rela- 
tions extend  to  every  moment  of  time.  Only  after  all  time  is 
"in,"  so  to  speak,  is  the  whole  truth  extant.  And  it  is  just  this 
whole  truth  that  constitutes  the  realm  of  eternal  being.  Extend- 
ing over  the  whole  of  time,  it  is  timeless,  an  hence  unaffected  by 
change.  It  anticipates,  as  it  were,  all  change.  But  although 
every  ideal  entity  is  thus  related  to  the  whole  of  being,  and  when 
we  know  it  we  mean  it  as  a  member  in  this  whole,  stiU  we  may 
by  means  of  our  selective  intent  fix  upon  it  apart  from  its  rela- 
tions. Such  selection  cannot  affect  the  nature  of  what  we  know 
when  most  of  its  relations  are  external.  One  such  external  rela- 
tion is  just  this  knowing  act  of  ours,  to  which  indeed  the  ideal 
entity  is  related  and  which  has  been  anticipated,  so  to  speak, 
in  its  eternal  status,  but  which  may  be  ignored  by  our  knowing 
process. 

To  return  to  our  own  field,  history,  and  to  express  briefly 
the  results  of  this  discussion.  There  are  two  sets  of  truths,  the 
eternal  and  the  temporal.  The  former  is  the  totality  of  all  true 
propositions  that  may  be  asserted  of  any  given  individual,  which 
propositions  include  its  relations  to  all  other  individuals  and  to 
every  ideal  entity.  It  is  the  individual's  total  significance.  This 
truth  stretches  over  all  time,  and  when  we  refer  to  it  we  mean 
it  thus  in  its  timeless  completeness.  Ideal  history  could  only  be 
written  after  the  entire  time-process  was  completed.  Hence 
it  is  unaffected  by  change  and  has  anticipated  our  own  knowing 
act.   Our  knowledge,  however,  need  not  include  this  whole  truth. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  161 

but  may  selectively  reproduce  a  part.  The  second  group  of  his- 
torical truths  is  of  the  form  ' '  A  existed ' ' ;  they  have  become  such 
through  the  becoming  false  of  the  correlative  proposition  "A 
exists."  They  state  what  A  ivas  in  his  actuality,  that  is,  as  he 
was  apart  from  those  relations  of  which  he  was  necessarily  ignor- 
ant and  which  did  not  enter  into  his  consciousness.  They  repro- 
duce his  mere  actuality,  they  view  him  apart  from  his  ideal 
significance.  They  are  themselves  eternally  true,  but  they  are 
true  only  after  he  has  perished,  just  as  the  proposition  "A  will 
exist"  is  true  only  before  A  becomes  actual.  The  actuality  of 
the  man,  which  is  reported  by  these  truths,  is  not  the  same  as  his 
ideal  being ;  the  former  passes  away,  and  the  truths  which  report 
it  are  not  the  same  as  the  latter.  Yet  they  are,  after  he  has  gone, 
eternal  like  the  latter  and  are  together  with  the  latter. 

The  paradoxes  which  beset  the  monistic  absolutist  theory  of 
truth,  paradoxes  so  ably  and  frankly  set  forth  by  Joachim-^  in 
his  Nature  of  Truth,  and  common  to  his  own,  to  Spinoza's,  and 
to  Professor  Royce's  views,  arise  through  seeking  to  make  the 
existence  of  an  individual  a  part  of  the  ideal  truth  about  him. 
They  do  not  distinguish  the  individual,  as  his  own  actuality 
isolated  him,  from  that  actuality  as  viewed  in  all  its  relations  and 
in  its  bearings  on  what  is  meant  and  striven  for.  If  we  do  not 
seek  to  join  what  nature  has  put  asunder,  the  contradiction  disap- 
pears. This,  to  be  sure,  results  in  a  duality  of  truth ;  but  at  what 
gain?  Clearness  and  comprehension.  Error  will  not  fit  into  the 
scheme  of  truth,  nor  sin  into  a  man's  true  self.  That  A  erred 
is  a  truth  which  is  no  part  of  the  truth  about  which  A  erred — 
although,  since  in  being  all  things  are  together,  it  is  related  ex- 
ternally to  that  truth.  A  man's  mistakes  in  arithmetic  are  no 
part  of  numerical  being;  were  this  truth  not  fixed  and  objective, 
it  could  not  serve  as  a  corrective  of  his  mental  process ;  in  fact, 
he  could  not  err  at  all.  Nor  is  a  man's  life  as  he  lived  it  part 
of  that  ideal  judgment  upon  him  which  beholds  him  in  the  light 
of  all  history.  He  is  not  part,  but  topic,  of  his  reckoning.  AVere 
he  a  genuine  part  of  this  judgment,  he  would  have  to  be  aware 
of  it,  for  his  existence  is  his  awareness ;  and  if  so,  he  never  would 
have  erred. 


21  The  Nature  of  Truth,  chap.  v. 


1()2        IJniversil}!  of  Californiu  Publications  i)i  I'hilosopliy.  \  ^'"l-  2 

Ilisloi-y  ;is  ;iti  ;i|)|)Ccciat  ivc  .sciciifc  lijis  to  iip-cl  the  chart^c  of 
subjec(i\  il\ .  'IMiis  churgo,  we  believe,  is  due  to  a  coni'usioii  be- 
tween an  clliical  judfxinent  iipo?i  liistory  and  lustory  as  we  liave 
viewed  il.  The  liviciii;^  of  the  interrehitioris  of  purjxjses,  the 
selliiiLT  forth  how  the  aim  of  our  period  of  a  man's  life  in- 
Hueiieed  that  of  anotiier  period,  how  his  acts  afTeeted  the  acts 
of  contemporaries  and  successors,  and,  h)oking  back,  liow  they  in 
turn  were  inHuenced  by  the  deeds  of  his  ancestors, — this  threading 
out  of  the  mutual  i-eference  of  intents  and  i-esulting  actions 
is  as  objective  as  tlie  study  of  a  crystal,  and  may  be  entirely 
unbiased  by  ethical  judgment.  Still,  albeit  something  different 
from  this,  an  ethical  judgment  upon  history,  as  Professor  San- 
tayana  claims,  may  be  objective  and  non-individualistic.  As  he 
represents  it,"  such  a  judgment  would  take  as  standard  the  ideals 
which  were  implicitly  recognized  by  the  men  of  the  past  them- 
selves. The  historian  would  not  foist  the  ideal  which  is  mandatory 
upon  himself  upon  men  of  alien  traditions  and  nature.  The  ideal 
which  gives  the  "ought"  to  conduct  is  primarily  individual,  it 
is  relative  to  the  endowment  and  nurture  of  the  person;  it  is 
universal  only  secondarily,  where  genuine  interests  meet,  as  they 
do  in  the  case  of  man,  on  the  basis  of  similarity  in  organization 
and  environment.  Such  ideals,  one  for  each  life  and  overlapping 
where  they  may,  are,  we  believe,  part  of  the  eternal  world.  Their 
being  and  authority  become  known  and  felt  by  every  reflecting 
conscience.  An  ethic  that  is  liberal  and  individualistic  is  not 
therefore  antinomian  or  anti-social.  Because  the  good  differs  in 
part  for  each  individual,  it  is  none  the  less  insistent,  and  leads 
just  as  surely  to  the  service  of  the  many.  A  pluralism  of  ideals 
is  not  a  denial  of  ideals.  Although  ethical  truth  is  a  relation  in 
the  form  "A  is  good  for  B, "  it  is  no  less  true;  for  this  relation 
has  eternal  truth.  There  is  always  an  absolute  standpoint.  '"  Vie- 
ler  Edlen  niimlich  bedarf  es.  und  vielerlei  Edlen,  dass  es  Adel 
gebe  ! ' '  On  the  basis  of  a  knowledge  of  the  needs  and  aspirations  of 
the  men  of  the  past,  the  historian  can  discover  their  ideals,  can 
even  come  to  laiow  them  better  than  the  men  themselves  did. 
and  can  judge  them  accordingly.  Such  judgments  form, 
we  believe,  a  genuine  part  of  history;  for  the  relation  of  the 


--  Reason  in  Science,  pp.  258,  259. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knoxdedge.  163 

individual  to  what  he  ought  to  have  been,  forms  part  of  his 
eternal  significance. 

The  ethical  reading  of  history  is  subjective,  only  when  the 
historian  judges  the  individual  from  the  standpoint  of  that  ideal 
which  may  be,  to  be  sure,  authoritative  for  himself,  but  has  no 
validity,  or  only  partial  validity,  when  applied  to  another.  When 
such  judgments  result  from  ignorance  of  the  relativity  and 
plurality  of  ideals,  they  are  trivial  and  contemptible  examples 
of  ethical  autocracy,  and,  being  false,  form  no  part  of  history. 
Still  I  am  far  from  denying  place  to  the  sincere  expression  of 
repugnance  for  an  alien  ideal.  Such  an  expression,  when  it 
understands  itself  as  an  utterance  of  private  taste,  and  does  not 
mistake  itself  for  an  ethical  judgment,  is  a  legitimate  manifesta- 
tion of  personal  life ;  and  where  in  practice  ideals  are  really  con- 
flicting, and  compromise  is  no  part  of  the  good  of  each,  sucli  utter- 
ance is  courage  and  duty.  And  these  judgments  have  their 
proper  place  in  history ;  for  that  the  purposes  of  A  or  B  are  repug- 
nant to  mine  is  a  part  of  the  interrelation  of  aims  which  history 
records.  They  must,  to  be  sure,  be  recorded  in  history;  what 
they  cannot  do,  is  to  serve  instead  of  history.  Their  importance 
is  relative  to  the  personal  weight  of  the  historian,  which  com- 
pared with  that  of  all  other  individuals  must  be  but  insignificant. 
Their  legitimate  place  is  not  in  the  genuine  ethical  judgment 
upon  history,  but  in  that  part  of  the  subject  which  simply  records 
individual  interests.  There  they  would  probably  find  themselves 
as  some  among  many  insignificant  statements  of  personal  pref- 
erence. 

Again,  it  is  charged  that  the  forms  of  history  are  subjective. 
Simmel  compares  an  historical  narrative  to  a  work  of  art.  Those 
brief  summaries  of  a  century,  those  bold  aperqus,  which  are  so 
fascinating  yet  so  untrustworthy,  seem  like  the  painting  of  a 
landscape,  to  be  constructed  by  selecting  what  elements  yon  will 
and  rearranging  them  to  make  a  pleasing  and  uniiied  effet-t.  lii- 
questionably  history,  as  it  is  written,  is  selective,  and  the  form 
is  largely  adapted  to  our  aesthetic  interests  and  our  limitations 
of  view ;  but  it  is  not  for  this  reason  subjective,  in  the  sense  of 
failing  to  report  the  truth.  If  I  choose  to  consider  only  the 
even  numbers,  my  neglect  of  the  odd  numbers  does  not  falsify 


1(11        (hiirrrsihi  of  Ctilifoniid  I'lihlicntions  in  riiilosophi/.  [Vol.2 

those  flijit  T  do  consider.  Tf  T  discover  tlie  relations  between  3 
and  27,  and  am  intentionally  oblivious  of  tbeir  relations  to  otber 
numbers,  I  may  not,  to  be  sure,  b(!  able  to  find  out  all  tbe  truths 
about  the  relations  of  8  and  27,  but  I  can  at  least  discover  some. 
Or  if  in  fnnil  of  a  window  T  lake  my  stand  in  such  a  way  that 
some  ujxly  buildings  are  shut  out  from  my  view,  and  what  I  do 
see  thereby  gets  a  grouping  that  plefuses,  I  none  the  less  see  as 
it  is  what  I  do  see.  History  may  be  partial  and  artistic,  but  none 
the  less  true.  To  sum  up  an  age  in  a  sentence  requires  that  one 
leave  out  much  that  is  true,  but  so  long  as  what  is  said  is  true,  it 
is  unobjectionable.  ^loreover,  such  .surveys  are  necessary.  Only 
by  means  of  thorn  can  one  get  a  truth  that  covers  a  wide  range  of 
facts.  Such  truths  must  be  abstract,  and  consequently  can  find 
expression  only  in  brief  compass.  But  the  abstract  is  none  the 
less  true ;  it  may  reveal  the  form  or  the  law  of  a  whole  series  of 
particulars.  One  does  not  need  more  than  a  few  sentences  to 
express  the  truth  that  Greek  philosophy  passed  from  a  stage  of 
cosmic  to  ethical  and  logical  speculation,  then  united  both  in  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  and  finally  became  eclectic  and  religious.  Brevity 
does  not  militate  against  truth,  and  the  most  universal  truth  of 
all  may  be  the  briefest. 

CHAPTEE  VI 

HISTORICAL  VERIFICATION 

We  have  briefly  sketched  the  ideal  of  historical  knowledge. 
This  ideal  nowhere  appears  complete  in  human  experience.  Only 
fragments  of  it  are  toilsomely  Avon.  "We  now  turn  to  the  ques- 
tion, by  what  means  do  we  get  possession  of  these  fragments, 
how  do  we  assure  ourselves  that  they  are  genuine?  What  is 
the  process  of  historical  research  and  verification  ? 

It  is  no  part  of  our  task  to  go  into  the  details  of  this  subject. 
They  belong  primarily  to  the  business  of  historical  science  and, 
although  of  interest  to  us,  cannot  come  within  the  scope  of  this 
paper.  We  shall  seek  to  make  plain  only  a  few  leading  epistemo- 
logieal  principles,  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  growth  and 
verification  of  knowledge,  in  their  relation  to  the  cognizance  of 
the  past. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  165 

By  Historical  Truth  we  have  meant  the  ideally  complete  whole 
of  historical  knowledge.  By  true  ideas  we  mean  ideas  that  em- 
body any  part  of  this  Truth.  The  test  of  the  truth  of  ideas  must 
be  internal,  or  intrinsic.  Since  the  idea  is  not  the  object,  and 
we  never  escape  from  our  ideas,  we  can  only  compare  idea  and 
object  if  we  accept  as  a  fact  the  power  of  the  idea  to  reveal  the 
object.  But  how  do  we  know  that  this  revelation  is  true  and 
not  that  of  a  lying  prophet  ?  There  are  two  indications.  First,  the 
idea  must  be  adequate,  consistent,  self-satisfying,  luminous.  It 
must  give  us  an  experience  of  what  it  means,  and  mean  nothing 
other  than  we  experience.  It  must  not  suggest  anything  more 
than  it  says,  hint  of  any  thing  which  it  does  not  impart.  Sec- 
ondly, what  the  idea  claims  to  reveal  must  be  consistent  with 
everything  else,  which  other  ideas  claim  to  reveal.  It  must  fit  into 
a  consistent  whole.  As  soon  as  a  contradiction  is  revealed  in  our 
objectifying  ideas,  they  cease  to  objectify,  they  no  longer  claim  to 
report  being.  Like  witnesses  caught  in  a  falsehood,  they  blush 
and  confess  their  deceit.  In  regard  to  simple,  unrelated  ideas,  the 
question  of  consistency  cannot  arise.  Complex  ideas  which  seek 
to  unite  incompatible  objects,  to  put  one  into  a  context  into 
which  it  does  not  fit,  are  inconsistent.  Thus  the  simple  idea  of 
blue  cannot  be  inconsistent.  Its  truth  consists  in  its  adequacy : 
the  fact  that  M'hen  we  "look  at  blue,"  as  we  say,  we  have  an 
experience  which  announces  itself  as  an  experience  of  object,  and 
does  not,  so  far  as  blue  is  concerned,  suggest  that  anything  more 
could  he  experienced;  this  self-fulfilling  cognitive  experience  is 
what  we  mean  by  looking  at  the  object.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
complex  idea,  "the  commensurability  of  the  diagonal  and  the 
side  of  a  square,"  is  inconsistent,  because  it  seeks  to  place  the 
numerical  value  of  the  ratio  between  the  two  lengths  in  the  series 
of  rational  numbers,  to  which  it  does  not  belong.  The  incon- 
sistency of  a  complex  idea  usually  arises  through  want  of 
adequacy  in  its  constituents.  As  soon  as  it  was  discovered  just 
what  we  mean  by  the  elements  of  the  idea  which  served  as  our 
illustration,  the  inconsistency  was  discovered,  and,  in  addition, 
the  right  relation  of  its  parts.  Thus,  in  the  end,  the  test  of  the 
truth  is  the  adequacy  of  the  idea, — ^seeing  is  believing.  Consist- 
ency itself  must  be  transparent  in  the  complex  idea.     Perfected 


l(t()         Uiiivcrsihi  of  ('(ilifoniin  I'lihlical ions  in  Philosophy.  I  ^'**^-  - 

know  li'df^c  iniisf  he  self  liimiimiis.  Kvcri  it"  ccrtfiinty  could  he 
niaintaiiu'd  (tnly  liy  a  dialectic  of  i)r(*rnisos  implic^d  by  every 
denial  of  tlieni.  this  would  slill  be  lb(;  ease,  for  the  evidence  that 
X  implies  not-X  would,  in  the  end,  be  intuitive.  Since  most  of  our 
ideas  nre  conipiex  and  inaile(|uatf,  we  could  probably  never 
determine  whether  they  were  consistent  or  not,  if  we  did  not 
have  with  us  a  stock  of  simple  ideas — those  of  the  sense  qualities 
and  llie  simpler  relations,  some  of  which  form  a  part  of  everj' 
conii)l('X  idea.  The  niakint,'  of  tlicse  siinfjle  idea.s  adequate  by 
seeurinjj:  tlie  appi'opriate  experience's  and  the  consequent  revela- 
tion of  inconsistency  or  its  absence  (so  far  as  we  can  thereby 
discover)  is  the  process  by  which  all  hypotheses  in  science  are 
tested. 

Now,  in  those  cases  w^here  it  is  impossible  to  have  some  of  the 
elements  of  a  complex  idea  adequate,  the  difficulties  of  verifying 
ideas  are  of  course  enormous.  In  the  case  of  the  past,  we  possess 
such  self-satisfying  ideas  only,  and  perhaps  doubtfully,  with 
regard  to  the  immediate  past.  ^Moreover,  most  of  our  ideas  are 
extremely  fragmentary ;  they  mean  a  large  range  of  facts,  but 
report  little  detail.  Our  memory,  for  example,  w'hich  is  the 
basis  of  all  our  knowledge  of  the  past,  refers  to  a  mass  of 
experience,  tells  us  that  there  was  such  a  mass,  but  informs  us 
of  only  a  decidedly  few  events.  Now,  since  our  ideas  are  thus 
inadequate  and  partial,  what  is  the  basis  for  our  confidence  in 
what  they  do  reveal?  Moreover,  since  the  past  is  inaccessible, 
even  non-existent,  how  can  we  verify  our  ideas  at  all?  Again, 
all  our  supposed  verifications  of  history  are  made  apparently  by 
present  or  future  facts:  how  can  we  verify  the  past  by  the 
present  or  the  future? 

In  the  first  place,  all  evidence  that  there  were  any  past  events 
is  necessarily  contained  in  the  objectifying  ideas  which  in  one 
way  or  another  mean  the  past.  The  fact  that  we  have  an  idea 
of  the  past  is  the  only  possible  testimony  to  the  being  of  the 
past.  Whatever  an  idea  announces,  so  long  as  it  docs  not  con- 
tradict an}'  other  idea,  we  must  accept.  Unless  we  do  this,  we 
can  have  no  knowledge  at  all.  For  the  possession  of  objectifying 
ideas  is,  we  reiterate,  just  knowledge  itself.  So  long  as  ideas  do 
refer  to  an  object,  even  if  they  are  inadequate,  that  is.  even  if 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  167 

they  do  not  reveal  the  M^hole  of  every  feature  of  what  they  mean, 
they  must  be  accepted  as  revelations  of  being.  The  witness  of 
ideas  must  be  accepted  until  proved  contradictory.  There  is  no 
proof  which  is  not  an  ontological  proof. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  test  of  truth  is  the  satisfaction 
we  find  in  our  ideas  individually,  or  in  the  consistency  of  a  set 
of  ideas,  or  in  their  usefulness  to  us  as  a  means  of  ordering 
experience.  Nor  does  this  mean  that  our  will  is  expressed  in 
our  ideas.  "We  cannot  help  possessing  these  objectifying  ideas; 
we  do  not  determine  that  contradictory  ideas  no  longer  objectify. 
These  things  are  with  us  as  our  bodies  are ;  we  do  not  choose 
them,  we  cannot  get  rid  of  them;  they  compel  our  assent.  We 
may  or  may  not  be  satisfied  with  our  ideas.  The  consistency  of 
our  objectifying  ideas  may  please  us  if  we  are  interested  in 
science;  we  hate  it  if  it  contravenes  our  wishes  or  other  non- 
objectifying  ideas.  We  cannot  choose  what  we  shall  believe  to 
have  been  our  past.  Objectifying  ideas  are  reflexes,  not  volitions. 
The  truth  of  our  ideas  of  the  past  cannot  be  reduced  to  their 
efficiency  as  tools  for  the  ordering  of  experience,  for  the  reason 
that  they  announce  the  heing  of  the  past,  which  is  their  true 
cognitive  function.  The  objectifying  intent  of  ideas  is  ignored 
by  the  instrumental  and  phenomenalistic  theories  of  truth. 

But  if  any  objectifying  idea  is  accepted,  cause  must  be  shown 
why  others  are  not.  One  such  cause  might  be  that  only  the 
ideas  of  self  and  other  present  objects  are  adequate.  One  might 
refuse  to  believe  in  anything  not  immediately  experiential. 
Thus  one  might  refuse  to  believe  in  all  but  the  immediate  past. 
But  such  a  standpoint  is  in  reality  untenable.  The  ideas  that 
we  verify  here  and  now,  announce  a  being  that  is  related. 
They  reveal  the  relations  of  these  objects  to  other  objects,  the 
ideas  of  which,  to  be  sure,  are  not  adequate,  yet  are  nevertheless 
present.  Now,  relations  without  end-terms  are  contradictory. 
An  adequate  idea  of  A-related  is  contradictory  unless  the  B 
that  is  not  adequately  presented,  or  some  other  such  object,  is 
accepted.  You  cannot  accept  A  as  father  unless  you  accept  B 
as  son.  The  case  of  the  past  is  parallel.  All  our  ideas  of  what 
we  adequately  verify,  either  of  our  own  or  of  our  fellow's  ex- 
perience, reveal  an  existence  which  is  related  to  much  that  does 


1G8        Jhiivrrsitjf  of  California  I'ublicniions  in  J'liiloaoph]/.  [Vol.  2 

nol  ;i(l('(|ii;ilrly  ;ii)|)c;ir,  ;ilt lioiiu'li  it  (Iocs  npjx'ar  inadequately. 
The  deed  llial  I  do  lo-day  appears  as  iinplitHl  by  another  deed 
from  wliicli  it  sprang.  The;  purpo.se  of  my  fellow,  as  I  pereeive 
it  now,  comes  to  me  as  part  of  a  seri&s  of  jiurpo.ses  extending 
somewhere  beyond  what  I  see.  My  friend  at  the  marriage  with 
no  jireeedinfT  love-making  or  agreement  de  convenance  is  a  con- 
tradiction. T  have  jus  adcfpiate  a  knowledge  of  the  implication 
of  lliis  silualioii  ])y  other  situations  as  I  have  of  the  situation 
itself.  Although  I  do  not  have  an  adequate  idea  of  that  other, 
I  must  accept  something  whose  general  character  would  fill  in 
the  blank  which  the  nature  of  the  relation  perceived  involves. 

But,  so  far,  this  proof  that  the  past  did  exist  betrays  the 
insufficiency  of  all  ontological  proofs  of  existence.  The  purposes, 
whether  my  own  or  my  fellow's,  which  I  verify  do  indeed  imply 
the  being  of  other  purposes;  they  do  not  imply  that  they  did 
exist.  For  plainly  we  have  purposes  which  imply  deeds  in  the 
future,  5'et  these  deeds  are  not  actual.  And  similarly  the  deeds 
of  a  man  who  dies  in  his  youth,  when  part  of  a  coherent  scheme 
of  intentions,  imply  countless  others  which  are  never  realized. 
It  would  seem  not  to  be  contradictory  of  what  we  know  of 
existence,  to  suppose  that  this  present,  full-grown  and  energetic, 
sprang  with  all  its  purposes  and  beliefs,  by  generatio  aequivoca, 
from  an  absolute  nothing. 

All  this  we  must  admit,  yet  our  admission  is  not  fatal  to  our 
contention.  Did  our  present  purposes  imply  others  in  the  past 
in  the  same  way  that  they  imply  others  in  the  future;  did  our 
ideas  of  the  past  testify  only  to  the  being  of  the  past,  then  our 
case  would  surely  be  lost.  But  unlike  our  ideas  of  the  future 
or  of  merely  ideal  entities,  those  of  the  past,  as  we  have  seen, 
include  the  further  idea  of  the  proposition  "did  exist."  My 
idea  of  the  decision  which  (or  something  like  it)  is  implied  by  my 
present  act  of  writing  this  essay,  reveals  not  only  an  ideal  essence, 
but  in  addition  the  proposition  "it  was."  But  why  believe  this 
report  ?  Well,  in  the  first  place,  there  is  nothing  to  contradict  it. 
Unless  we  believe  our  objectifying  ideas,  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing  at  all.  Yet  surely  the  idea  of  this  proposition  is  not 
adequate;  were  it  to  become  so,  might  not  a  contradiction 
appear?     Since  you  cannot  adequately  verify  any  past  deed 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  169 

(with  the  exception  of  the  immediate  past),  how  can  you  verify 
any  simple  proposition  of  this  type?  And  if  you  cannot  verify  any 
one  proposition,  you  cannot  verify  any  at  all ;  that  is,  you  cannot 
verify  that  there  was  a  past.  Surely  you  have  not  refuted  the 
sceptic,  who  will  believe  in  that  only  of  which  he  can  obtain  clear 
and  distinct  ideas!  Not  yet;  but  the  refutation  is  at  hand.  It 
grows  out  of  the  considerations  about  relations,  set  forth  above. 
As  we  know,  the  essence  of  our  temporal  experience  is  becoming. 
What  we  verify  now,  appears  as  coming  from  something  else,  as 
growing  out  of  another  existence  which  it  supplants.  Our  idea 
of  this  is  as  adequate  as  our  idea  of  our  ovm.  actuality,  for  our 
actuality  is  just  of  this  nature.  I  never  do  a  deed  that  does  not 
announce  itself  as  ''having  come  from  one  that  did  exist." 
Without  an  existence  that  was,  the  existence  that  is  is  contra- 
dictory, just  because  it  is  an  existence  that  becomes.  Becoming, 
without  something  which  did  exist  from  which  it  became,  is  a 
contradiction.  We  have  the  term  and  the  relation,  but  the  other 
term  that  is  required  is  one  that  must  have  existed,  not  one  that 
has  merely  ideal  being.  Here  is  a  relation  that  has  not  mere 
logical  being,  but  existence,  and  can  exist  only  if  its  end-term 
did  exist.  The  proposition  ' '  A  becomes, ' '  which  I  verify,  implies, 
not  the  entity  of  B,  but  the  proposition  "B  became."  I  cannot 
accept  the  one  without  the  other.  The  present  grows  out  of  the 
past ;  this  very  growing  I  verify ;  the  one  cannot  exist  unless  the 
other  has  existed.  Thus  the  proposition  that  there  was  a  past  is 
proved. 

But  since  mere  existence  has  being  but  no  existence,  since  the 
that  is  never  separated  from  the  what,  the  nature  of  much  that 
did  exist  can  also  be  demonstrated.  The  general  character  of 
the  past  can  be  proved  from  the  present.  We  verify-  deeds  and 
relations  of  a  type  that  demand  an  end-term  of  a  specific  Iciiui. 
All  that  we  said  at  first  about  the  implication  of  the  past  by  tlie 
present  is  now  confirmed ;  for  the  implication  is  one  that  carries 
with  it  "having  existed"  as  well  as  being.  The  reason  why  we 
cannot  determine  from  the  present  more  than  the  general  char- 
acter of  the  past,  is  that  we  actually  verify  only  a  little  of  the 
present  itself.  The  fullness  of  even  our  own  moments,  although 
of  course  it  exists,  is  verified  only  to  the  smallest  extent.     We 


17(*        Univcrsittj  of  Califonila  I'i(f>li(nlif)ns  in  I'lnlosnjtlnf.   [  Vol.  2 

vci'iry  only  llic  ^'ciirrjil  rciitiii-cs,  and,  rrasDiiin^  rPDrn  their  rcl.'i- 
lioiis.  we  can  (Ictrciiiiiir  oiil\  I  lie  altstrai-t  fliaractfrs  of  tin;  cnd- 
tcrms. 

Tlins  my  pn-sciit  dn-ds  imply  a  drcisiori  to  writi'  a  moiio«^raph 
about  the  past,  l)iit  since  my  m<'mory  of  the  latter  is  inadequate 
and  my  knowledf^e  of  my  own  act  is  quite  as  inadequate,  I  can 
only  be  sure  th^it  there  was  a  decision,  of  a  certain  {general  nature. 
]\roreover,  we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  content  of  all  moments  has 
this  sort  of  implication.  There  is  much  that  seems  to  have  no 
logical  connection  with  that  out  of  whicii  it  grew;  at  least,  no 
such  implication  has  yet  been  made  out.  Hence,  although  because 
it  too  becomes  it  must  have  come  from  something  that  was,  we 
are  unable  to  determine  icJiat  was.  In  so  far  as  our  lives  are 
dreamful  and  incoherent,  we  cannot  trace  these  necessary  rela- 
tions. For  further  information  we  have  to  rely  on  empirical 
psychological  methods. 

That  there  was  a  past,  we  may  be  sure.  Aside  from  deduction 
from  the  present,  our  knowledge  of  it  is  based  on  memory,  our 
owTi  memory,  the  memory  of  our  fellows,  and  on  records,  which 
are  nothing  but  recorded  memory.  The  memories  that  we  at 
any  time  possess  are  few  and  inadequate;  but,  as  we  have  seen, 
their  inadequacy  need  not  lead  us  to  distrust  them  utterly. 
Especiall}'  when  recorded  soon  after  the  event,  memory  has  a 
fair  degree  of  accuracy.  Growth  in  knowledge  of  the  past 
depends  upon  getting  richer  memories,  upon  gathering  objectifj'- 
ing  ideas  from  our  fellows  and  from  records.  Since,  because  of 
the  feebleness  of  the  mechanism  of  memory,  we  are  unable,  for 
the  most  part,  to  render  our  ideas  of  the  past  adequate,  we  can 
verify  them  only  one  with  another  and  so  see  to  it  that  they  are 
not  inconsistent.  Consistent  memories,  living  or  recorded,  we 
must  needs  believe,  if  we  are  to  obtain  any  knowledge  of  the  past. 

Fortunately,  records  can  be  tested  in  another  way  besides 
comparison  inter  se :  namely,  with  reference  to  the  objects  of 
which  they  make  mention.  If  a  writer  refers  to  an  event,  say 
an  eclipse,  we  can  discover  his  veracity  by  finding  out  whether 
such  an  event  has  a  place  in  the  physical  series.  ^Moreover,  if 
another  writer  asserts  that  he  also  saw  it,  we  have  a  means  of 
determining  their  contemporaneity.    We  laiow  that  the  conscious 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  171 

series  is  correlated  with  the  series  of  physical  events  in  such  a 
way  that  only  those  experiences  which  have  existed  together  can 
obtain  adequate  ideas,  immediate  experiences,  of  the  same  por- 
tion of  the  latter  series.  Of  course  this  verification  of  records 
assumes  the  validity  of  the  process  of  scientific  induction.  To 
what  extent  it  is  reliable  we  shall  investigate  anon.  We  turn 
first  to  consider  certain  other  difficulties  which  the  processes  of 
historical  research  and  verification  commonly  arouse. 

How  can  records,  which  are  present  existing  physical  objects, 
inform  us  of  past  experiences  which  no  longer  exist?  This  diffi- 
culty rests  on  several  prejudices  and  errors.  To  begin  with,  the 
physical  objects  may,  as  we  have  seen,  be  past  as  well  as  present. 
Yet  even  if  they  are  not,  the  propositions  that  I  discover  by 
reading,  say,  the  inscription  on  a  monument,  are  a  part  of 
historical  truth,  which  is  a  portion  of  the  eternal  world.  j\Iy 
reading  of  the  inscription  and  my  consequent  finding  of  these 
propositions  are,  to  be  sure,  present  facts,  but  I  cannot  see  that 
this  is  relevant  to  the  truth  or  temporality  of  what  I  find.  ]\Iy 
finding  a  fact  now,  does  not  make  what  I  find  merely  present. 
So  long  as  we  bear  in  mind  that  ideas  are  not  what  they  know, 
that  by  their  objectifying  intent  they  can  refer  to  anything 
remote  in  time  or  timeless,  whether  in  heaven  or  earth,  it  will 
not  puzzle  us  to  know  how  by  an  act  in  the  present  we  can 
verify  what  is  not  present. 

Nor  is  there  any  difficulty  in  the  fact  that  I  learn  historical 
truth,  an  "intangible"  thing,  only  by  means  of  hard  rocks  and 
visible  ink  and  paper.  We  have  long  since  abandoned  the 
prejudice  that  only  what  we  can  touch  and  handle  has  being. 
It  is  no  less  wonderful  that  we  can  by  our  ideas  know  books  and 
tables  than  that  we  can  know  propositions.  That  I  cannot  know 
the  latter  apart  from  the  former  is  irrelevant.  I  cannot  know 
anything  without  a  brain  or  a  digestive  tract,  yet  who  will  say 
that  this  fact  has  any  epistemological  significance  ?  The  processes 
of  psycho-physics  are  without  significance  for  the  theory  of 
knowledge.  There  is  no  importance  attachable  to  the  fact  that 
before  I  can  get  an  idea  which  embodies  a  proposition,  my 
occipital  lobes  must  be  stimulated  by  ink  and  paper,  and  the 
entire  associative  apparatus  set  to  work.     It  is  even  doubtful 


172        Unli'frsihf  of  (Uilifontin  I'lihlicaliofis  in  Philosophy.  [Vol.  2 

whctlicr  wlicM  I  know  a  proposilioti  T  iimst,  also  Uuow  tlic  words 
in  wliicli  it  is  rraiiird.  Wlu-n  llic  iriiiid  is  fixed  f)n  tin-  meaning, 
"when  feathered  into  lu-rsclf, "  "none  of  those  thirif^s  IroubU'  her, 
neither  sounds  nor  sights."  At  any  rate,  however  I  obtain  these 
ideas,  whether  always  in  conjunction  with  ideas  of  sounds  or 
sitrhts.  oi-  not.  i1  is  sufficient  that  I  do  obtain  them.  I  fret  mean- 
ings, consistent  witli  and  enricliinp:  my  other  objectifying  ideas 
which  refer  to  the  past.  Just  as  I  can  accept  the  testimony  of 
luminous  memory,  so  I  can  accept  other  objectifj'ing  ideas,  how- 
ever derived  psycho-physically.  Our  knowledge  moves  within 
the  charmed  circle  of  ideas,  in  which  democratic  company  the 
dignity  of  each  depends  only  on  its  clearness  and  its  harmony 
with  its  fellows,  and  not  at  all  on  ancestry. 

ThiLS,  I  have  an  idea,  no  matter  how  obtained,  that  there 
once  existed  a  man  named  Socrates,  who  preached  the  gospel  of 
the  rational  life  and  for  various  reasons  was  put  to  death  by  his 
own  countrymen.  j\Iy  ideas  about  him  and  his  fate  are,  let  us 
say,  vague :  I  know  that  he  made  a  speech  in  his  own  defense, 
but  just  what  he  said  I  do  not  know ;  I  know  that  he  taught 
that  virtue  is  one  with  self-knowledge,  but  I  do  not  know  how  he 
justified  this  view.  My  ideas  mean  more  than  they  reveal;  they 
crave  for  the  detail  of  what  they  do  impart.  I  read  the  works 
of  Plato,  Xenophon,  Aristotle,  I  get  new  ideas  about  Socrates 
and  fill  out  the  meaning  of  those  which  I  already  have.  I  dis- 
cover the  arguments  which  he  used  at  his  trial,  I  learn  his 
method  of  induction  and  maieutic  scrutiny.  Are  these  new  ideas 
consistent  among  themselves,  with  all  the  other  ideas  which  I 
have  about  Greek  history  and  Greek  character,  with  my  ideas, 
adequate  or  inadequate,  of  human  life  in  general  and  the  world 
of  nature?  If  so,  then  I  may  be  confident  that  what  I  learn  is 
true. 

^Memory  is  fragmentary,  and  much  less  than  is  ever  remem- 
bered is  recorded.  Hence,  even  if  we  could  gather  together  all 
that  was  ever  written  on  stone  or  bronze  or  paper,  our  histories 
would  be  imperfect.  We  fill  up  the  lacunae  by  means  of 
hypotheses.  The  validity  of  these  hypotheses  rests  on  the  validity 
of    empirical    psychic    laws,    obtained    by    induction.-^      Here 


-3  See  Wundt,  Logik  der  Geschichtsicissenschaft,  Bd.  2,  Teil  2.     Sigwart, 
Logic,  translation  hj  Helen  Dendy,  vol.  2. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  173 

abstract  psychology  helps  to  make  histo^J^  At  best,  induction 
gives  only  probable  results.  Oftentimes  two  or  more  hypotheses 
are  equally  possible.  Because  of  the  so-called  plurality  of 
causes,  and  the  uncertainty  of  effects  where  the  materials  for 
induction  are  few,  many  interpretations  of  history  are  possible. 
From  a  given  set  of  acts  testified  to  by  our  records,  historians 
can  perhaps  with  equal  reasonableness  suppose  several  different 
motives  for  the  actions  of  a  Cromwell  or  a  Napoleon.  Even  if 
psychology  had  deduced  exact  laws,  we  could  not  apply  them 
with  very  much  confidence  to  the  past,  because  of  the  paucity 
of  facts.  "We  could  not  get  sufficient  constants  with  which  to 
solve  our  equations — which,  since  mental  life  is  complex,  would 
contain  many  variables.  These  facts  about  historical  interpreta- 
tion are  legitimate  ground  for  a  measure  of  scepticism,  notably 
illustrated  by  Balfour  in  his  Defense  of  Philosophic  Douht.-* 
Yet  they  do  not  make  history  hopeless.  We  do  possess  the 
objectifying  ideas  obtained  from  recorded  memory,  whose  general 
accuracy  we  can  trust.  Of  course,  even  the  understanding  of 
records,  when  their  language  is  not  well  known,  rests  somewhat 
on  probability;  yet,  where  the  meaning  of  the  words  has  been 
transmitted  through  translations,  or  through  the  memory  of 
successive  generations,  in  spite  of  transformations  in  the  mean- 
ing of  the  vernacular  itself,  none  except  the  professional  sceptic 
can  reasonably  doubt  that  we  can  obtain  a  modicum  of  fairly 
accurate  information.  If  we  could  not  have  well-grounded  faith 
in  records,  we  might  indeed  be  sceptical.  But,  of  course,  many 
versions  of  history  remain  open. 

Not  only  the  interpretation  of  records,  but  also  their  cor- 
roboration and  testing  by  means  of  the  facts  in  the  physical  world 
to  which  they  refer,  is  derived  largely  from  inference.  We  can 
get  at  so-called  physical  objects  only  through  memory  and 
inference  from  the  facts  which  w^e  verify  in  the  present.  Thus 
the  validity  of  all  hypotheses  in  history  rests  on  the  validity  of 
inference,  and  hence,  in  the  end,  on  the  validity  of  so-called 
empirical  laws. 

Empirical  physical  laws  express  the  laws  of  series  of  physical 
facts.     Such  laws  are  uncertain,  compared  with  mathematical 

24  Chap.  iv. 


174        (Inii'crsil !i  of  Califoniia  J'ltblications  in  I'hilosophy.  I  ^^^-  2 

axioms,  Itccausc,  while  in  the  cjisc  of  llic  latter  all  the  data  to 
which  Ihcy  ii|)|)ly  an-  at  hand,  in  the  former  there  is  a  paucity 
of  (lata.  In  the  one  ease,  a  comph'tr  verification  is  possiliie:  wo 
ean  sec  how  the  law  is  excmplilied  in  every  fact  which  we  choose 
to  examine.  In  the  oilier  ease,  we  can  never  be  sure,  even  when 
all  the  facts  at  our  command  fit  into  our  law,  that  there  do  not 
exist  within  the  series  in  question  other  facts  which  would 
render  a  diflPerent  formula  necessary,  or  perhaps  make  any  exact 
formula  impossible.  The  basis  for  our  confidence  in  such  laws 
jis  we  do  obtain  rests  on  the  random  character  of  our  facts. 
They  are  a  chance  selection,  a  fair  sample,  which  may  be  .sup- 
posed to  illustrate  the  character  of  the  whole. ^'^  Assuming  the 
law,  and  having  a  few  facts,  we  can  predict  the  nature  of  other 
facts  with  a  degree  of  probability  proportionate  to  the  number 
and  representative  character  of  the  facts  upon  which  our  previous 
induction  was  based. 

From  a  deterministic  point  of  view,  whether  we  infer  physical 
facts  in  the  past  or  the  future  is  indifferent.  Of  course  one  end 
of  the  series,  through  memory,  is  more  accessible  to  us  than  the 
other.  We  might,  however,  for  all  I  can  see,  have  had  some  sort 
of  prescience  by  which  we  could  divine  so-called  future  objects. 
As  it  is,  we  simply  dip  into  the  world  of  facts;  through  percep- 
tion and  memory,  we  find  different  kinds  of  series,  many  times 
repeated  perhaps,  and  guess  as  best  we  may  what  laws  they 
would  exemplify  if  we  could  find  all  the  facts  which  belong  to 
them.  AVliether  by  means  of  our  laws  we  infer,  from  a  few  facts 
now,  other  facts  in  the  future  or  the  past,  is  indifferent :  we  are 
simply  referring  to  different  ends  of  the  series  to  which  our  facts 
belong.  Thus,  whether  from  the  laws  of  the  solar  system  I  infer 
to-morrow's  or  yesterday's  sunrise  is  indifferent,  so  far  as  the 
process  of  inference  and  the  degree  of  probability  are  concerned. 
The  only  difference  is  that  I  can  verify  to-morrow's  sun,  but  not 
yesterday 's. 

The  inference  of  psychical  facts  seems  to  be  on  the  same  plane. 
Even  if  from  empirical  psychic  laws  we  are  unable  to  determine 
the  existence  of  concrete  states  of  consciousness,  we  can  never- 
theless determine  the  possihility.  the  character,  of  such  acti%'ity. 


25  Compare  Charles  Peirce,  Studies  in  Logic. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  175 

We  can  determine  that  if  A  existed,  or  if  A  will  exist,  he  was, 
or  will  be,  of  the  character  B.  Existence,  even  if  contingent  and 
arbitrary,  is  subject  to  possibility,  that  is,  to  abstract  deter- 
mination. And  a  possibility  of  existent  character  is  just  as 
determinate  and  lawful  an  entity  as  a  stone  or  a  reflexive  rela- 
tion. Just  as  we  can  discover  the  nature  and  behavior  of  bodies 
when  in  certain  relations,  so  we  can  determine  the  nature  and 
reactions  of  psychic  facts.  The  matter  of  psycho-physical  paral- 
lelism is  irrelevant :  the  correlation  of  psychical  objects  with 
physical  objects  is  simply  another  fact  about  each.  If  the  law 
of  correlation  were  completely  determined,  I  could  pass  from  a 
fact  in  the  psychical  realm  to  a  fact  in  the  phj^sical  realm,  and,  if 
of  the  appropriate  nature,  from  a  neurosis  to  a  psychosis.  If  the 
correlation  is  accurate,  and  there  are  determinate  physical  laws 
of  the  brain,  there  are  corresponding  psychical  laws.  The  facts 
from  which  we  can  deduce  such  psychical  laws  are  given  to  us 
b}^  memory  and  perception,  just  as  physical  facts  are  given  to 
us.  Hence,  from  them  we  can  deduce  the  laws  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  physical  existence,  and  in  turn  infer  other  concrete 
existences. 

But  we  are  not,  in  the  case  of  the  past,  restricted  to  mere 
possibilities.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  we  know  that  there  was  a 
past,  and  we  also  know  that  certain  events  took  place  in  the  past. 
Since  existence  must  conform  to  possibility,  we  can  infer  that 
these  events  must  have  been  of  such  and  such  a  general  char- 
acter. In  accordance  with  our  empirical  psychic  laws,  we  can 
make  the  probable  inference  that  if  A  occurred  it  was  of  the 
character  B,  because  A  could  not  exist  unless  it  were  also  B. 

To  sum  up :  we  verify  and  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  the  past 
(verifi^cation  and  growth  in  knowledge  go  hand  in  hand)  by 
enriching  the  meaning  of  such  objectifying  ideas  of  the  past  as 
we  possess,  through  seeing  that  these  ideas  are  consistent  with 
themselves,  with  one  another,  and  with  such  other  ideas  as  we 
derive  by  induction  to  fill  in  the  lacunae. 


17()         Univcrsil !J  of  ('alifoniin  I'lihlicttI ions  in  I'hAlosojjIiij.   I  Vol.  2 

CIIAI'TKi;    \  II 

HISTORICAL   TRI  Til    AXI)    KXTSTEXCE 

Historical  research  and  verification  are  the  processes  by  which 
we  win  historical  truth.  They  are  matters  of  faithful  effort  and 
creation,  the  bringing  into  existence  of  something  new,  occur- 
rences unique  and  novel  in  our  changeful  lives.  In  contrast  with 
this  coming  and  going  of  our  ideas,  we  have  often  spoken  of  the 
truth  as  fixed  and  changeless.  Even  though  this  very  search  for 
truth  is  part  of  history,  yet  the  truth  about  this  search  does  not 
change.  The  truth  that  contemporary  events  would  happen 
might  have  been  known  to  the  discerning  prophet  long  before 
their  occurrence.  When  he  made  his  judgment  he  had  an  object 
— the  truths  in  question.  To  be  sure,  the  events  did  not  exist, 
but  the  truth  about  them  was  eternally,  else  it  could  not  have 
been  foreseen.  Whoever  judges,  no  matter  when,  judges  about 
being;  whoever  entertains  an  objeetifj'ing  idea,  refers  to  that 
which  is.-®  That  we  do  not  know  the  whole  of  this  truth,  is  of 
course  itself  a  truth ;  and  that  we  often  err,  is  another  truth. 
"History  is  always  badly  written  and  always  has  to  be  re- 
written." Is  it  not  then  a  mere  assumption  that  this  truth  is? 
Nay,  even  the  truth  that  we  know  only  in  part  and  that  we  err, 
itself  implies  the  being  of  truth.  The  part  implies  the  whole, 
and  false  propositions  imply  true  ones. 

"But  surely,"  it  will  be  objected,  "one  can,  in  a  way,  make 
a  mistake  about  things  which  do  not  exist.  For  example,  I  can 
have  a  false  idea  about  a  Centaur,  which  is  nothing  but  a  creation 
of  the  nightmares  of  early  mythology.  Or  I  can  err  about 
transcendental  forms  of  space,  w'hich  are  not  real. ' '  To  this  the 
reply  is,  that  we  are  not  considering  being  real,  but  only  being. 
To  be  sure.  Centaurs  probably  are  not  real,  that  is,  do  not  exist, 
and  multi-dimensional  spaces  cannot  as  such  exist.  Yet.  for  all 
that,  they  are.     The  Centaur  is  at  least  a  possible  existent,  that 


■JO  Coiiiparo  Brentano,  Psychologic,  loc.  cit.     Royce.  The  World  and  the 
Individual,  first  series,  lecture  VII. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  Ill 

is,  the  conception  of  it  involves  no  contradiction ;  hence,  at  least 
this  truth  has  being,  namely,  that  it  might  exist.  And  what 
after  all  is  a  possibility?  Is  it  not  an  entity?  But  suppose 
the  Centaur  did  involve  a  contradiction;  it  would  still,  as  a 
contradictory  conception,  as  an  attempted  union  of  simple 
objectifying  concepts,  have  being.  It  is  at  least  a  fancy  of  the 
poets.  Multi-dimensional  spaces  equally  have  being.  They  are 
objects  of  knowledge ;  we  can  quarrel  and  err  about  them ;  surely 
one  does  not  contend  or  make  a  mistake  about  nothing. 

From  our  point  of  view,  nothing  exists  save  the  totality  of 
concrete  experiences  which  are  present  at  a  single  point  in  the 
time  series.  The  men  and  women  of  the  past  and  future  do  not 
exist;  neither  do  ideals  and  fictitious  entities.  Yet  for  all  this, 
we  assert  the  being  of  the  past  and  future,  namely,  of  all  the 
characters  of  those  that  did  or  will  exist,  their  mutual  relations 
and  influences,  their  several  various  or  identical  ideals,  and, 
last — that  which  distinguishes  this  realm  from  that  of  an  interest- 
ing drama — the  proposition  that  these  characters  did  or  will 
exist.  And  we  also  assert  the  being  of  the  laws  of  physical 
objects,  of  all  universals,  of  mathematical  and  logical  entities,  of 
fictions,  of  ideals,  of  the  relations  trivial  or  important  between 
any  and  all  these  things.  There  is  no  snobbery  in  the  society  of 
being ! 

Being  that  is  not  existent,  being  that  is  not  the  same  as  ideas 
of  being,  truths,  propositions  which  are  not  somebody 's  judgments, 
— such  conceptions  seem,  to  many,  metaphysical  monstrosities. 
Moreover,  the  dualism  between  existence  in  time,  and  being  that 
is  eternal,  will  be  to  many  intolerable.  What  is  this  being  tliat 
does  not  exist,  it  will  be  asked;  what  is  its  support  in  tlie  real 
world? — what  is  its  relation  to  time?  Is  it  not  a  mere  abstrac- 
tion, a  %w/)to-/i09  as  illegitimate  as  Plato's?  These  protests  of 
monism  cannot  be  disregarded.  In  order  to  investigate  their 
legitimacy,  we  shall  examine  some  attempts  at  construing  truth 
and  being  in  terms  of  concrete  existence;  always  with  especial 
reference  to  Historical  Truth. 

In  w^hat  way  shall  we  seek  to  make  truth  identical  with  exist- 
ence? The  phenomenalist  will  endeavor  to  make  it  one  with  the 
ideas  which  mean  it.     But  whose  ideas  are  the  Truth?     Surely 


17rt        Ihiiiu  rsity  of  (Jalifoniia  I'lihlicalions  in  I'hilosoplnj.  I  ^'<-»l-  2 

not  those  of  any  one  of  us.  The  ideas  of  historical  tnith,  for 
oxainple,  of  even  the  h-arncd  historian  are  eonfcsscdiy  frag- 
mentary. Even  we,  to  be  sure,  knew  eriouf^h  to  etiabh;  us  to 
define  certain  eharaeters  of  Ihe  'I'rulh;  Imt  we  meant  mon?  than 
we  knew.  Our  intent  overreached  otir  acconij)lishnient.  We 
were  aware  of  liow  much  more  our  own  knowh'd<,'e  implied. 
Secondly,  the  Tnitli  is  plainly  one,  whereas  we  knowers  are 
many.  Last,  our  knowledge  perishes;  but  the  Truth  passes  not 
away.  It  does  not  affect  the  truth  that  John  Smith  lived  and 
died  in  some  obscure  town,  that  in  a  few  generations  no  one  will 
know  that  he  did  exist.  We  cannot  make  the  being  of  our  own 
unrehearsed  dreams  dependent  on  our  memory,  which  will  soon 
perish  forever  at  our  death. 

If  the  Truth  is  not  the  knowledge  of  any  one  of  us.  it  is  not 
the  combined  knowledge  of  all,  a  totality  of  objectifying  ideas. 
You  cannot  get  the  Truth  by  piecing  together  errors.  Since  the 
views  of  each  are  a  part  of  history,  if  history  were  a  static  and 
eternal  immediacy,  this  might  be  true.  But  since  parts  of  the 
immediate  mean  other  parts,  since  they  recognize  and  fall  short 
of  ideals,  and  since  they  all  perish  in  turn,  they  cannot  be  what 
the}'  mean,  cannot  be  what  they  aim  at,  cannot  be  the  eternal. 
Moreover,  the  totality  of  these  views  would  have  a  being  unknown 
to  any  one  of  them. 

Another  view  is  that  of  Professor  Royce,  expounded  also  by 
Joachim  in  his  recent  book.  The  Nature  of  Truth.  The  truth 
consists  of  the  finite  and  partial  views  together  with  a  complete 
view,  united  in  one  whole  of  consciousness.  Historical  truth  is 
truth  about  men  who  have  played  their  parts  in  life,  ethical 
truth  concerns  the  ideals  of  willing  subjects;  neglect  that  about 
which  truth  is,  and  you  cannot  understand  it  at  all.  Apart 
from  fact  and  will,  truth  and  ideal  are  meaningless  abstractions. 
Complete  interpretation  of  the  fact,  complete  understanding  of 
the  will,  is  the  Truth.  But  truth  is  not  mere  fact  and  will,  nor 
mere  reflection  and  ideal,  but  fact  and  reflection  upon  the  fact, 
will  and  understanding  of  the  will;  for  in  order  to  know  com- 
pletely, one  has  also  to  be  what  one  knows. 

We  need  not  stay  to  examine  this  view  in  detail.  It  involves 
all  the  contradictions  flowing  from  the  conception  of  one  con- 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knoidedge.  179 

sciousness  supposed  to  include  many  others  as  parts  of  itself,  and 
also  the  false  epistemologieal  thesis  that  the  true  idea  necessarily 
possesses  the  existence  of  its  object.  We  have  already  dealt  with 
it  when  we  examined  Professor  Royce's  conception  of  the  eternal 
and  time-inclusive  moment,  and  elsewhere.  Moreover,  there  is 
no  need  of  our  again  setting  forth  the  difficulties  of  this  theory 
when  it  has  been  so  convincingly  done  by  Joachim  himself  in 
the  last  chapter  of  his  book.  We  shall  only  call  attention  to  one 
thing,  which  we  could  not  have  considered  before  we  had  proved 
that  the  past  does  not  exist.  Since  finite  consciousnesses  pass 
aw^ay,  a  further  contradiction  breaks  out  in  the  Absolute  Self — he 
is  at  once  an  eternal  actual  whole,  yet  his  parts  become  non- 
existent. 

There  is  still  another  way  of  construing  truth  in  terms  of 
knowledge  or  existence.  The  truth  about  the  past  is  what  we 
mean  when  we  study  history,  it  is  the  goal  of  the  objectifying 
ideas  which  arise  when  we  enter  upon  research  or  let  our  memory 
wander  as  it  will.  It  is  that  which  gives  our  ideas  their  signifi- 
cance; it  is  what  our  ideas  would  become  if  they  were  complete. 
It  is,  to  be  sure,  not  actual;  it  is  only  an  ideal,  a  potentiality; 
but  it  is  such  as  to  be  capable  of  realization,  and  apart  from  the 
intent  of  conscious  beings  it  is  not  at  all.  Thus  although  the 
Truth  is  not  identical  with  any  knowing  process,  it  is  not  inde- 
pendent of  all  such  processes. 

]\Iuch  that  is  contained  in  this  last  view  is  true,  almost  to 
the  extent  of  being  obvious ;  but  it  is  not  very  illuminating,  and 
it  embodies  some  errors.  Of  course  the  Truth  is  that  which  we 
mean ;  it  is  the  ideal  which  we  strive  to  realize.  And  just  as  the 
artist  could  not  paint  a  picture  unless  he  had  something  to  copy, 
and  to  serve  as  a  standard,  so  we  could  not  know  unless  we  had 
an  ideal  of  knowledge.  But  just  as  the  model  need  not  perish 
if  the  artist  ceases  to  paint  her,  so  the  Truth  cannot  cease  to  be 
if  our  meanings  vanish.  Suppose  that  to-day  all  idea-s  were  to 
disappear ;  still  the  truth  that  these  ideas  were,  would  be.  ]\Iore- 
over,  if,  as  is  said,  the  Truth  does  not  depend  upon  each  idea 
severally,  A's  or  B's  or  C's,  how  can  it  depend  upon  any? 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  make  truth  depend  on  anything  that 
can  pass  away;  for,  as  Professor  Santayana  puts  it,  if  nothing 


JHO         Ihiircrsil If  of  Cnl iforiiin  I'lihlical ions  in  l'hiloso}>h]i.   I  ^'•''-  2 

oxistod  it  would  still  be  true  that  all  cxisfcncos  vvcro  wantinf?; 
hut  it  cannot  he  true;  that  there  is  no  truth;  for  to  assert  this 
involves  a  contradiction. 

I'ut,  after  all,  what  is  a  mere  potentiality,  possibility,  ideal? 
Is  it  anythin<ic  else  than  a  va<;uely  conceived  entity  which  bears 
certain  relations  to  the  actual?  Thus,  tlie  ideal  of  knowled{,'e  is 
something  which  I  conceive  jus  what  I  might  attain,  given  cer- 
tain conditions;  my  ideal  self  is  a  definite  character  which  is 
what  I  most  deeply  wish  to  be.  That  is,  possibilities  and  ideals 
are  well  defined  entities;  when  you  call  them  ideals  and  possi- 
bilities, you  simply  state  something  about  them ;  namely,  the 
truth  that  they  might  become  actual,  or  that  they  are  what  we 
want.  But  in  order  to  be  an  ideal  or  a  possible  existent,  a  thing 
must  first  be.  You  cannot  make  its  being  dependent  on  its  also 
being  an  ideal  or  a  possibility.  It  is  not  merely  what  we  mean 
or  w^hat  we  want ;  for  it  is  granted  that  our  meanings  and  wishes 
are  vague  or  erroneous.  In  fact,  this  view  simply  defines  some 
relations  Avhich  eternal  entities  bear  to  the  existent,  and  then 
takes  this  account  as  complete.  But  you  cannot  adequately'  define 
a  thing  by  telling  its  relations  to  other  things.  A  related  term 
has  some  individuality  of  its  own.  Thus  this  attempt  to  construe 
truth  in  terms  of  existence  or  knowledge  turns  out  to  be  abortive. 

AVe  turn  to  one  final  effort.  In  the  Sophist,  Plato  makes 
the  Stranger  put  this  query  to  the  "friends  of  the  Ideas":  "We 
want  to  ascertain  from  them  more  distinctly  whether  they 
further  admit  that  the  soul  knows,  and  that  being  or  essence  is 
known."  To  which  Theaetetus  replies:  "There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  they  say  so."  After  another  question  and  answer,  the 
Stranger  says:  "...  But  they  will  allow  that  if  to  know  is 
active,  then  to  be  known  is  passive.  And  on  this  vievr,  being, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  known,  is  acted  upon  by  knowledge,  and  is 
therefore  in  motion ;  for  that  which  is  in  a  state  of  rest  cannot 
be  acted  upon,  as  we  affirm.  .  .  .  And,  0  heavens,  can  we  ever 
be  made  to  believe  that  motion  and  life  and  soul  and  mind  are 
not  present  with  perfect  being?  Can  we  imagine  that  being  is 
devoid  of  life  and  mind,  and  exists  in  awful  unmeaningness,  an 
everlasting  fixture  ?"^^     Plato  not  only  anticipated  all  criticism 


■-■  The  Sophist,  248  sub.  fin.,  Jowett's  translation. 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  181 

of  his  own  theory,  but  in  this  passage  he  indicated  the  course 
which  future  thought  would  take  in  reference  to  the  Ideas. 
Aristotle,  who  believed  that  he  had  refuted  Plato  and  dispensed 
with  the  Ideas,  simply  endowed  them  with  the  activity  and  life 
of  which  Plato  had  spoken  in  the  Sophist,  and  put  them  into  a 
different  locus — the  intellect  of  the  Prime  Mover.^*  On  its 
philosophic  side,  the  Scholastic  conception  of  God  was  descended 
from  Aristotle,  and  it  identified  God's  omniscience  with  the 
Truth.  Finally,  Leibnitz,  a  christianized  and  idealistic  Aristotle, 
made  the  eternal  truths  the  thoughts  of  the  Supreme  ]\Ionad. 
Such,  in  brief,  are  the  origins  of  what  we  believe  the  most  promis- 
ing of  all  attempts  to  construe  truth  in  terms  of  existence.  Is 
there  any  difference  between  a  single  complete  and  enduring 
knowledge  and  the  Truth  ? 

In  the  case  of  Historical  Truth  there  seems,  at  first  sight,  to 
be  no  difference.  What,  we  may  well  ask,  is  the  truth  about  a 
man,  but  that  which  would  appear  after  a  complete  knowledge  of 
him  and  his  influence?  To  understand  the  influence  of  Plato 
on  Aristotle,  one  must  somehow  get  both  within  a  single  unity 
of  apperception.  Have  these  relations  any  being  except  just  such 
an  understanding  of  them  ?  What  is  the  ethical  judgment  upon 
a  character,  except  a  living  appreciation  of  the  man  as  ho  was, 
together  with  a  comprehension  of  his  ideal — what  he  ought  to 
have  been?  Is  there  any  being  in  the  proposition,  "Socrates 
did  exist,"  other  than  a  sense  of  loss  that  does  not  pass  away, 
together  with  the  memory  of  him? 

Let  us  elaborate  this  concept  of  the  All-Knower,  in  such  a 
way  as  to  fashion  it  most  like  the  Truth ;  then  we  can  judge  of 
it,  whether  it  is  only  a  copy  or  the  original.  This  Being  would 
possess  ideas  which  reproduce  all  the  past  and  anticipate  all  the 
future.  The  character  of  all  the  persons  that  had  ever  lived  or 
would  ever  live,  together  with  their  ideals,  that  is,  togotlior  with 
what  they  most  deeply  strove  to  be,  and  also  the  judgment  of 
how  far  they  realized  or  fell  short  of  these  patterns, — all  would 
appear  in  the  ideas  of  the  All-Knower.  Thus  he  would  be  at 
once  Eecording  Angel  and  Just  Judge;  only,  he  woulil  a.ssign 


28  Aristotle 's  concept  of  the  potential — which  is  nothing  but  a  proposi- 
tion about  an  existent — is  another  guise  in  which  the  Ideas  reappear. 


182        lhiii'(rsihi«if('ttlifi)nii(iI'iil)li((ilioiis  in  I'li  ilnsopliij.  I  Vol.  2 

IK)  piitiisliiiiriits  ()!•  rTwai'ds,  nor  woiiM  lir  Iwivc  any  ix-i-ri-fcriccs 
or  emotions  lliat  were  not  ('X[)n'ssiv(!  of  Iho  ideals  of  the  wills 
of  the  persons  tlieinselves ;  he  would  simply  understand  and 
sympathize.  Oiir  rehitimis  to  him  woiiM  lie  just  what  oiii-  ri-\n- 
tions  to  truth  and  the  ideal  arc,  namely,  imitation  and  devotion. 
By  our  ideas  we  should  imitate  his  ideas,  hy  our  self-knowledge 
and  striving  we  should  seek  to  realize  what  he  eternally  knows  to 
he  the  intention  of  our  true  wills.  As  Aristotle  has  descrihed  him 
and  our  latest  Aristotelian  corrected  and  a(Med  to  the  outlines, 
he  would  he  the  Unmoved  Mover  who  attracts  hut  doas  not  impel, 
whom  we  love,  but  by  whose  action  we  cannot  be  helped.  For, 
being  the  reflex  of  all  interactions,  he  could  not  himself  inter- 
act with  the  world.  His  causation  would  be  ideal  or  final,  never 
efficient.  Our  relations  with  him,  of  knowledge,  or  of  love,  would 
also  be  purely  ideal ;  they  would,  however,  be  entities,  and  so  be 
part  of  his  knowdedge.  But  they  would  not  make  us  part  of  him, 
for  by  hypothesis  he  is  ideal  being,  not  transient  existence. 

Thus  the  life  and  aspiration  of  every  person  would  be  fixed 
in  the  eternal  memory  or  anticipation.  These  ideas  would  be, 
of  course,  for  the  most  part  inactive;  they  would  announce 
only  the  ideal  being  and  truth  of  the  past  and  future ;  the  ideas 
wdiich  reflected  the  present  would  alone  have  the  appearance  of 
activity.  These  last  Avould  be  the  counterparts  of  existential 
judgments — they  would  correspond  to  the  propositions  "A  is" 
and  ' '  A  exists, ' '  together.  When  the  person  died,  the  idea  would 
become  inactive  and  would  take  on  the  color  of  the  proposition 
"A  existed."  Similarly,  the  anticipatory  ideas  would  in  turn 
become  active  and  then  inactive  again,  as  the  future  became 
present  and  then  past.  There  would  be  two  parts  of  the  eternal 
consciousness.  First,  a  complete  knowledge  of  both  past  and 
future — the  data  of  memory  and  anticipation  fully  understood 
in  all  their  interrelations  throughout  the  entire  infinite  course 
of  time :  this  part  would  correspond  to  the  eternal  truths.  Then 
there  would  be  the  region  of  ideas  that  would  simply  reflect 
the  past  and  future,  and  the  present,  the  latter  ideas  being 
active:  these  ideas  would  be  subject  to  change;  they  would 
embody  the  existential  propositions,  which  change  from  "A  will 
exist "  to  "A  exists, ' '  then  to  "A  did  exist. ' '    These  two  regions 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  183 

would  exist  side  by  side,  just  as  the  flowing  river  exists  alongside 
of  its  stationary  banks.  The  Eternal  would  then  be  a  witness 
to  the  drama  of  life,  possess  perfect  memory  of  its  completed 
acts,  and  an  accurate  prescience  of  its  developments,  together 
with  a  masterly  understanding  of  the  significance  of  the  whole 
— the  most  attentive  onlooker  and  the  most  consummate  critic. 
The  ' '  spectator  of  all  time  and  of  all  existence, ' '  he  would  be  the 
perfected  philosopher.  Unlike  Aristotle's  Prime  Mover,  he,  utter 
Citizen  of  the  World  and  Democrat,  would  not  disdain  the 
most  trivial  detail:  the  ideas  of  "even  the  meanest  things"-® 
would  form  part  of  his  consciousness.  Unlike  the  God  of  popular 
tradition,  he  would  have  no  emotion  just  his  own;  his  would  be 
wholly  that  of  sympathy  with  the  world ;  for  besides  knowing  of 
its  joys  and  sorrows,  its  right  judgments  and  its  errors,  he  would 
also  completely  understand  them  and  what  they  together  verily 
meant. 

Yet  since  Being,  unlike  existences  which  are  many,  is  un- 
doubtedly one,  for  all  entities  are  related,  the  AU-Knower, 
besides  his  acquaintance  with  existence,  would  be  the  complete 
mathematician  and  logician,  beholding  with  the  mind's  eye  every 
universal  as  well  as  every  individual  entity,  and  aware  of  all 
the  infinite  interrelations  of  things,  including  even  the  "trifling 
propositions, ' '  every  conceivable  combination  of  fancy  or  caprice, 
every  possibility  of  existence  or  thought  despised  by  James  and 
Locke.  In  this  region  of  pure  contemplation,  the  All-Knower 
would  have  a  life  apart  from  ours.  For  whereas  our  science  is  a 
copy  of  detached  squares  of  the  patch-work  quilt  of  Truth,  his 
would  be  a  vision  of  every  piece  in  its  well-stitched  place.  Only, 
since  this  consciousness  is  the  Truth,  there  would  be  in  it  no  more 
emotion  or  delight,  no  more  fatigue  and  transition  and  ill  self- 
consciousness,  than  there  is  in  sunlight  or  in  a  purely  ideal 
triangle.  In  this  region  of  pure  Being  would  be  united  the 
Aristotelian  vorjai^  vor)ae(i)<i  with  the  Plutonic"-'^  and  Christian 
concern  for  the  world  of  change  and  existence. 

But  if  the  All-Knower  is  aware  of  change,  must  not 
eternal  truth  itself  change  ?    Would  not  the  eternal  be  temporal  ? 


29  See  the  Parmenides,  130,  Jowett  's  translation. 

30  Compare  the  Laws,  901. 


184        University  of  Calif  oni  id  I'uhlicatiotis  in  I'hilosophj/.  (Vol.2 

Well,  p.'irt  (it"  llii'  Tnilli  (hn-s  clKiiiLrc.  II"  time  Is,  all  of  triitli  is 
not  unalterable.  Existential  propositions  chanf^e,  as  we  have 
indicated;  we  eaiinot  exclude  these  from  the  realm  of  the  Truth. 
If  time  is,  there  is  no  whole  of  truth  which  is  eternal;  for 
existential  propositions  become  false.  There  is  only  one  part  of 
truth  which  is  eternal;  namely,  the  significance  and  ideal  inter- 
relations of  all  beings  at  all  points  of  time.  But  only  after  the 
time  process  is  completed  will  this  eternal  Truth  be  the  whole 
of  truth.  And  is  not  the  All-Knower,  as  we  have  described  him, 
true  to  this  side  of  truth  as  it  is?  For  he  possesses,  throu<,'h 
memory  and  anticipation,  this  eternal  insight  which  o'erleaps 
all  time,  in  addition  to  the  consciousness  of  time  and  change. 
That  a  consciousness  combining  felt  permanence  with  felt  change 
is  possible,  our  own  finite  consciousness  exemplifies :  we  feel,  for 
instance,  along  with  the  passing  away  of  elements,  and  the  coming 
in  of  new,  that  what  we  call  our  "identity,"  be  it  purpase  or 
only  some  persistent  organic  sensation,  does  not  change. 

Such  an  entity  would  indeed  seem  to  be  indistinguishable 
from  the  Truth.  But  throughout  our  description  of  it,  we  have 
really  given  it  a  false  character.  We  have  called  it  a  knower 
and  a  consciousness,  yet  these  epithets  do  not  rightly  belong  to 
it.  For  each  implies  the  relation  of  the  object  known  to  some- 
thing else  and  different,  and  this  has  no  place  in  the  eternal 
being.  That  being  was  only  the  knowledge  of  its  object,  between 
which  and  its  object  there  was  no  difference;  it  had  no  life  of 
its  own  to  which  the  object  could  be  assimilated.  It  was  just 
the  complete  object  itself,  and  the  deceitful  plausibility  of  our 
procedure  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  idea,  considered  in  itself, 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  self  in  which  it  may  exist,  in  the  case 
of  perfect  knowledge  is  identical  with  its  object.  Hence,  in 
describing  the  adequate  idea  of  the  Ti-uth,  we  have  done  nothing 
but  describe  the  Truth  itself,  not  a  Consciousness  in  possession 
of  the  Truth. 

But  has  the  Truth  existence  ?  This  depends  on  what  is  meant 
by  existence.  If  we  mean  what  has  been  meant  in  this  essay, 
concrete  experience,  effective  and  interactive  with  other  experi- 
ences, then  the  Truth  has  no  existence.  For  the  Truth  is  just 
the  abstract  propositions  which  we  have  described;  there  is  no 


1913]         Parker:  Metaphysics  of  Historical  Knowledge.  185 

concrete  life  in  which,  of  themselves  and  independently,  they 
inhere,  and  through  which  they  might  become  effective  in  the 
world.  The  only  concrete  experience  in  which  they  do  exist  is 
our  o^vn,  when  we  know  them.  Only  there  can  they  briefly  dwell 
and  act.  "The  truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail" — but  only  if 
we  are  devoted  and  striving. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  by  existence  is  also  meant  what  Russell 
and  Moore  (and  we,  following  them)  have  called  Being,  then 
surely  the  Truth  exists.  But  such  existence  brings  with  it,  we 
judge,  none  of  the  allurements  which  men  commonly  expect. 
The  existence  of  the  eternally  abstract  warms  the  heart  of  the 
philosopher  only.  And  such  an  existence  merely  is  proved  in 
the  arguments  offered  by  Howison  and  by  Royce.  As  to  the 
latter,  in  particular,  knowledge  of  part  of  the  Truth  does  indeed 
prove  the  being  of  the  whole,  but  not,  surely,  a  living  Knower  of 
the  whole. 

Hence  every  attempt  to  make  the  whole  Truth  a  part  of 
concrete  experience  has  failed.  Yet  these  attempts  have  not 
been  uninstructive.  For  they  have  led  us  to  a  sort  of  Platonic 
Realism,  the  elucidation  of  which  seems  to  us  the  way  to  insight. 
The  view  of  Plato  that  there  is  an  eternal  reality,  the  essence  of 
all  changing  experience,  has,  we  believe,  never  been  refuted  or 
superseded.  Only,  the  details  of  Plato's  view  must  be  altered: 
the  realm  of  Being  must  be  enlarged  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
universals,  and  the  Heraclitan  flux  must  be  identified  with  the 
immediate.  This  realism  has  none  of  the  disadvantages  of  other 
sorts ;  for  its  Being  is  not  unknown,  since  being  appears  in  our 
ideas.  Knowledge  and  its  object  are  similar.  The  work  of 
knowledge,  as  of  action,  is  that  of  the  Artist — to  embody  an 
original  which  (the  landscape  is  full  of  the  soul  of  the  painter!) 
is  part  of  his  very  self.  And  although  we  refuse  to  define  the 
Eternal  Truth,  repeating  to  those  who  clamor  for  an  answer  to 
this  hoary  demand.  Truth  is  Truth,  we  claim  the  most  intimate 
acquaintance  with  it,  an  acquaintance  which  grows  with  increase 
of  knowledge.  Because  you  cannot  construe  red  in  terms  of  any- 
thing except  itself,  you  do  not  confess  to  ignorance  of  it.  Just 
so,  when  you  understand  the  proposition,  "Plato  was  the  author 
of  the  theory  of  Ideas,"  or  the  proposition,  "Every  asymmetrical 


18G        University  of  (Jalifurnia  I'ublicalivns  in  I'liilosopky.  L  Vd.  2 

relution  can  be  expressed  as  a  symmetrical  relation,"  you 
apprehend  an  entity  having  as  clear  and  luminous  a  subsistence 
and  cliaraeter.  This  you  should  accept  as  it  declares  itself  to 
be,  without  seeking  to  give  it  a  nalurr  you  do  not  fiml  in  4t. 
When  you  study  history  or  mathematics,  you  are  wandering  in 
the  eternal  realm,  much  as  you  might  wander  in  Africa;  and  if 
you  explore  well,  you  make  as  assured  discoveries  of  that  which 
is,  and  you  must  take  your  discoveries  as  simply  in  the  one  case 
as  you  do  in  the  other.  The  philosopher,  although  he  knows 
more  of  the  world  than  the  common  man,  often  understands  it 
less  well,  because  his  ideas  become  confused  through  the  desire 
to  see  our  variegated  universe  all  of  a  single  color. 

Beekeley,  Calipoenia, 
June,  1910. 


AA       001325  872        8 


i!i!i!ii*iiiii! 


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